The Darkness that Binds Us
by Dreamingsinger
Summary: A bargain was made fifteen years before. A young human woman bound as the wife of a drow. this is the story of what happens as the young woman changes to suit her new life. This story will probably be quite long.
1. Epilogue

**I have decided to write a story that I hope will be much darker and with more adult type themes than my other stories. I am giving this one an 'M' rating, which I may bring down to 'T' if it seems like a good idea later on. Please read an review.**

The darkness that binds us.

Davian Droverson, clutching his infant daughter close to his chest with one arm, the one bloodied from the sword, scrambled up over the ledge with the other arm. He prayed to his god that the blood which marked the child's face was no her own, but knew that he had not the time to pause to look the baby over. Cursing loudly and viciously, he pulled himself over the top of the ledge. He let the baby fall to the ground with a dull thump, as his badly injured arm gave way, and he quickly moved to bundle the startled child in her blankets. The baby had not yet had the time to fuss, and now bundled, she simply returned to her sleep. He pulled the delicately made pendent from his pocket, and once again studied the round, flat disk, which had been inscribed with the image of a dragon. The pendent was made of gold, as was it's long chain. He shoved it quick back into his pocket, and pulled off his filthy, once white shirt. He threw it onto the ground, and gasped at the amount of blood that covered his arm. The stream that flowed beside him would serve as a clean source of water. He filled his water container, and began to wash away the blood. The moon shone overhead in the otherwise pitch black night sky. Davian's arm bled as fast as he could wash the blood away, and he knew that he could bleed to death within hours. He knew that the swordsman who attacked him in the woods below, must have cut a major artery to his fingertips, and he felt himself loosing strength rapidly. He cursed the husband of his sister for daring to love a human. If he had not courted her... and loved her... and married her, he would not be in his mess at the current moment. He would have imagined in his life, being on the run from an elven village in the middle of the night. _Let the _drow_ have that village if my dear sister was not there, _he thought to himself as he tied the waistband of his shirt around his arm. The baby awoke, and began to pout softly. He held the bottle of water to her mouth, and she took a few small sips. Davian washed the blood from her face and felt relief to see that it was not her blood. The child was unharmed and looked around in the darkness. Davian lifted her back into his arms, and found his strength to keep going. He had to get back to the elven village to warn them to run. He prayed again to his god. This time begging that the drow did not know his shortcut across the woods, and over the cliff. He was a ranger, and hoped he knew the woods as well as he should have, in the dark. Rocks slipped beneath him, and he nearly went down to the ground several times, as he used far less caution then he should have, in his mad haste._ Please let me be in time to warn the elves, _he prayed in his mind, as he fell over a rock, and went face down to the ground, the infant flying from his arms. Please_ don't let that drow ranger tell the others where I was when he tried to kill me._

"Too late, I am afraid," the female voice cut though his thoughts, as the drow cleric bent to left the shrieking baby into her arms. She rocked the child slowly back and forth, supporting her with one arm, while she held her longsword with the other.

"You... you read my thoughts," Davian accused, struggling to stand, but failing, when his arm could not left him. "Please... give me my child."

"I would, but you see, I am quite fond of this baby," the drow said. She sat herself gracefully down on the ground, by folding her legs under her body, and lowering her body to the rocks. Davian was impressed by her grace, in spite of it all.

"These raids become so tedious after awhile," she went on. "I lead the parties, and I fight by their sides, but what do I ever gain. Why do I do this time and time again. Why do any of us. We never achieve anything really. We kill the elves, but we can never kill every one. There will always be some of them, and as long as there are, they can just keep the race going." The drow brushed her hand over the baby's soft, pale blond hair.

"Tell me, human," she said. "where is the mother of this lovely child."

"Dead," Davian said in the same sadness of the last year. "She died in childbirth, leaving me to raise our daughter alone."

"I see," said the drow cleric, her red eyes glowing in the darkness. "And you were out in the woods with an infant."

"Yes. I bring her out with me all the time."

"Wonderful. All you have done was interfere with a raid. That ranger should have killed you then and there, when he fought with you." She let loose a sarcastic chuckle. "Too bad he could not hit the broad side of a mountain most of the time. I am impressed that he even managed to get you in the arm. He is only a male after all. What are any of them good for really."

Davian looked up at the moon, and wondered how long the village would still stand for now. He thought of his sister, and his brother in law, and all the people he had come to know since joining his sister after his wife had passed away.

"I see that you love your sister, and those elves dearly," said the drow, reading his thoughts again, and Davian nodded. He was beginning to slowly transcend into a state of detachment from the world, as more blood drained from his body. He fought to retain awareness of the drow, and the infant. He wanted to know what was happening, and he could see in the dim light of sunrise, that the drow held a bottle in her hand. She quickly shoved it in her pocket, and closed the bag from which it must have come.

"What would be in it for me, if I ordered the fighter back, and spared the elven village," she asked, as Davian began to fall backward from weakness.

"What do you want," Davian asked weakly, his hand reaching for the pendent in his pocket. He pulled it out, and let the drow woman see the shining metal.

"An heirloom perhaps," said the drow, "but nothing I really want."

"What do you want," asked Davian again, becoming weaker. He wanted only to get his daughter to safety before he died, for by now he knew that death was close at hand.

"I haven't giving that much thought," said the drow, as a younger male came from the woods beyond Davian's vision, and knelt beside the cleric.

"Let's see," the cleric said slowly with a laugh. "How about you promise me your daughter as a wife for my son." She laughed at her own twisted humor, and chuckled in the face of the dying human before her, fighting to stay sitting up, as he stared at his baby in the drow's arms.

The cleric had, of course meant the request as her idea of a sick joke, but Davian looked at his daughter deciding weather he had the strength in his heart to grant her to young drow man. The cleric, realizing that the human thought that she meant it, and she made up her mind to except the child. Her son, who knelt beside her, looked at her with satisfaction. The dying human would never know of the private joke between mother and son, about him wanting a human wife.

"Fine," said Davian. "I will promise the boy my daughter's hand in marriage."

"Done," said the drow cleric. "When she is thirteen, she will marry Mavash and live in the place of his choosing."

"Sixteen," Davian said weakly. "Thirteen is too young to be a bride."

"Fifteen then," said the cleric, and Davian nodded his agreement. He knew not what else to do. His daughter was all he had to offer this woman to spare the village.

"I suppose I should heal you before I can my raiding party home," said the cleric. "you were good enough to bargain with me, and it is really not much trouble at all to heal you." She lay the baby on the ground, and set to work making the human well.

The raiders set off back to there world of darkness, as Davian looked up at the sunrise. His mind reeling from the promise he had made. He told himself that no matter what, he would hold true to that bargain.


	2. Eternity will bind us well

Chapter one. Eternity will bind us well.

She could feel the lace of her white gown brushing against both of her wrists. She was somehow glad of the tight fit of her shoes. The aching of her feet, told her that she was alive, and that this day was not some afterlife punishment for some deed in her life. Ellie stared again at the heavy metal door, mithrel, she suspected. She knew there was no way out. The hand of her guard pushed her slightly forward, and she took a hesitant step toward the alter ahead, and the figure of the goddess of the underdark. If not for the lights of the candles burning all around the room, she would not have been able to see a foot in front of her. She was have trouble seeing clearly as it was. She she was shoved forward again, this time deciding to walk faster, she caught the first glimpse of the man who was to be her husband. He was tall for a drow male and was dressed in nobleman's dress clothes. His platinum hair over the top of his face, and almost covered his eyes, which glowed red. He eyes her with a look that Ellie could not guess the meaning of, as she walked. She needed no more prompting as she made her way to the front, and the priestess, who had served as her guard, gave up her random shoves, and straightened the fabric of her elaborate dark blue robe. She then quickly fixed the folds of Ellie's gown, mistakingly pulling the young humans pale blond hair in the process. She might have given a look of apology, but Ellie could not tell in the dim light. She looked around the room again in fear. The walls made mostly of granite rock, on which hung magic charts in a language she could not understand. She could see better now, and blamed her still cloudy vision on her wedding vale, which covered her face in thin white lace. She reached the front and stopped walking, as her eyes watched the drow cleric at the raised alter, at the top of a short stone staircase. A young drow female, dressed in white, was assisting her, by passing her items, and taking others back, as the cleric rearranged the stone alter. The girl in white, her body scantily dressed, eyed Ellie with curious interest. She hesitated in her task for a moment, and let a small tin cup fall to the floor. The cleric's eyes opened wide, as she spun around to look at the girl for a moment. Without warning she raised her hand, and backhanded her young assistant across the face, with a resounding smack. The girl retrieved the cup, and handed it to the cleric who took it, while staring the girl down, until she knelt on the floor, her head bowed. The priestess leading Ellie stepped beside the human bride, and kneeled as well, as did the young man.

"Bow to the Goddess, young human," the cleric demanded, looking straight at Ellie. Ellie bent her knees a little in a polite little famine bow, and the cleric glared at her.

"You, a poor misguided surface dweller, needs all of the mercy that Lloth will show the kindness to offer you," the cleric shouted. "Bow properly you... human." Shaking in fear, from the cleric's sudden anger Ellie kneeled with the priestesses and the young man, making sure to tilt her head forward as they were doing. She knew well enough not to argue with the drow, by telling them that she was certain that a loving goddess or god would be something much different then their goddess. She was not ever sure that they thought of their goddess as loving in the first place. She could feel the hard stone floor beneath her body, but she did not dare move. She feared the anger of the cleric more than anything at that moment. She could not forget how the woman had turned and hit the young lady for one small mistake. For the first time in her life, seeing the inside of the drow city, she could understand her fate clearly. She grieved still for her father, who had died the year before. She was thankful that he had told her of her engagement to the drow male, before the illness took over his body, and caused it to shut down. She had cried herself to sleep the night he had told her of the man in the underdark, and cried again the night her father died. She had not cried again, knowing that fate was to be embraces, for it could not be changed. Ellie did not feel at all like shedding tears now, there were none left in her body to be shed. She had done it all a year ago. Now she simply stared at the floor, in the shadow of the wicked goddess of the drow. A succession of fast, fleeting images moved though her head. Herself, as a small child, swept up in the strong arms of her father in a rapid spin. Running through the market with a new doll to play with, a gift from her aunt. Racing though the endless meadows of her village, with the elven children she was growing up with.

"Rise," said the voice of the cleric, cutting through her jumbled thoughts, and Ellie got slowly to her feet, which had begun to become numb from kneeling. The cleric spoke some words in a language that the human could not understand. Her voice grow louder and the pitch higher, as she raised her arms into the air, before lowering them toward the figure of the goddess. Her son stepped forward, at a command from his mother, and the priestess on Ellie's right, gently pushed her toward him. The girl assisting the cleric began to make a fire in a small pit beside the alter. She squinted her eyes a little in the firelight as she worked. She was a creature of darkness and was not used to the light, even from just a small fire. The young man leaned toward Ellie and lifted the veil from her face. He pushed it back over her loose blond hair. She expected that he would kiss her, but he did not. He instead led her closer to the now roaring flames. Ellie was filled for a moment with a sense of sheer panic. She wondered whether she had been deemed an unfit bride for this boy, and would now be thrown to the fire, as an offering to the drow's goddess, as a testament to their deranged religion. Nothing happened. She stood at the edge of the flames with the man who must have now been her legal husband, and they watched the fire dance into the air, in higher and higher leaps and bounds. She dared to turn backward and look to the back of the room, surprised to see others in the room, several other woman, and a few men. They now moved to come farther into the room, and be part of the wedding as well. The crowd of about fifteen all gathered in closer, and watched the cleric. She took two bottles from the girl in white, and threw their contents into the fire. The flames hissed and roared, and went higher for a long dangerous moment, before settling into a steady dancing motion. Ellie began to watch the fire, memorized by the movement of the flames. She caught herself wondering why she was so fascinated by it, and then she realized that the room was beginning to smell of a strong, enticing fragrance. She began to understand that the smell was having a strange effect on her, and soon realized that it had the same effect on the drow as well. All the others in the room, were sitting on the stone floor with strange looks in their eyes, or moving about with the same looks. Some began to dance in strange motions, to music they must have heard in their heads. Ellie could now hear the sound of the music too, although she knew that no music played. She watched the girl in white, as she began to pull off her clothing, leaving it in a pile on the stone floor of the room, by the alter. Ellie was surprised to not feel phased by this sudden behavior on part of the young drow. She felt herself exacting it as an oddly normal thing for someone to do. Ellie watched the girl as she went into a wild spinning dance away from the alter, and across the floor, until she was caught up in the arms of the priestess still at Ellie's side. The girl fell unconscious in the woman's arms and the priestess let her gently fall to the floor. Leaving her to lay beside, a somehow indifferent Ellie. Who watched the group of drow with the feeling that her mind was drifting away from her body. She felt no panic, no fear, certainly no gripping terror, only a sense of wonder at her state of being.

Ellie, at some time later that night, felt her new husband take her by the hand and lead her away.

He led her from the room, both of them disoriented, her more then he, and took her into the corridor beyond. They walked in silence, her quietly fallowing him until they came to his room. He took her to the big soft bed, and she fell into the soft mattress, indifferently letting him undo the buttons of her lace wedding dress. She let a soft laugh escape her mouth, and soon fell into a fit of laughter beyond any control. The young drow male began to laugh too, and soon both were laughing hard. He had pulled off her clothing and his own, before she fell back, flat on the bed, recalling nothing more.

The room was filled with the eternal darkness of the drow world, as Ellie forced her drowsy body awake. She had not a faint clue what the time was, but could see the young man asleep beside her. She would not have seen him at all if not for his white hair, which almost shone in the darkness. She felt a chill over her naked body, and remembered how she had lost her clothing. Her mind was full of the image of the unclothed dancing girl falling into the arms of the priestess, and the smell of smoky perfume, and the sound of her own demented laughter. She recall those events of the past night, then she recalled more. She knew that the drow beside her had made a woman of her. Ellie pulled the thick blankets around her, and let exhaustion claim her once again. Waking up for a short moment sometime later, she saw her husband turn over in the dark to face her.

"Eternity will bind us well," he whispered, as she went back to sleep.


	3. Questions and Lessons

**I am hoping that there are some people out there who are into this story. Nevertheless, I will just keep working away at it, hoping to make it into something interesting.**

Chapter two. Questions and Lessons.

"I am so very glad you have answered to my summons as quickly as you did," said the cleric, looking down at Ellie in the dim candlelight. Ellie looked up at her, from her seat at the edge of the alter. She was filled with nervousness at being once more in the presence of this cleric. The woman had not struck her as a woman of much patience on the day of her wedding to Mavash, two days before. The cleric however seemed in a better mood today, and even seemed to smile a slight bit at Ellie's curious looks at the statue of the drow goddess Lolth.

"I'm sorry that it took me a while to get down here," Ellie said. "I did come quickly, but... you see... I..."

"You what," the cleric prompted, with surprising kindness.

"I can barely see," Ellie blurted nervously. "When the priestess come to tell me that you had summoned me, I had to ask her to lead me down here."

"Hmm... I see how you would have difficulties here in Menzoberranzan. You are after all, a creature of the light. You really did come down here quickly enough though, in spite of your... trouble." The cleric left the alter and walked over to a cabinet at the edge of the room, and pulled open the top drawer. She reached in and took out a thin metal wand.

"I have the perfect plan for your vision," she said grinning holding the want up in the air. "Ellie, please put out those candles."

Ellie hesitantly picked up the candle snuffer from the alter, and began to put out several small flames, until the room was plunged into sheer darkness. She could barely make out the silhouette of the cleric, who began a quiet chant, as she waved her free hand over the wand. To Ellie's amazement the thin piece of steel began to glow, lighting the room. The triumphant looking cleric handed the wand to a very amazed Ellie. Who took it from her, hesitantly.

"This will serve as your source of light in the world of the underdark. I will teach you the command words to make it glow, or to stop glowing, as you wish it to." Ellie tried to pronounce the strange words that the cleric said to her. The cleric said the words again, slower this time, and Ellie got it right.

"Soon, you shall begin to learn to speak all of your words in Drow," the cleric said, and Ellie became nervous at the thought of that huge undertaking.

"I would prefer just to speak common," she dared to say. "I don't think that I can learn your entire language."

"Nonsense," the cleric answered. "You will be assigned a private teacher to teach you the language. You can do it. Not everyone here speaks common. It is important that you are able to communicate with everyone." The two women fell into several minutes of tense silence. The cleric studying her new daughter in law, and Ellie studying the room.

"Thank you for making a light for me," Ellie finally said.

"Think nothing of it," her mother in law told her. "You must have some questions for me about everything that had happened lately, or about our world. You may ask now if you wish."

"I have so many questions," Ellie admitted, as the cleric led her to a chair at the table in the corner, before seating herself.

"I figured you would," the cleric said, with a laugh. "You may ask them, and I will have to hope to have the answers."

"Why do drow live in this dark world below the Earth," Ellie began, and the cleric looked surprised.

"You really know how to choose complicated questions," she said, with another laugh. We once lived on the surface, among the surface creatures. The elves began to turn on us though, and soon our goddess offered us shelter in the underdark, on the condition that we devoted our lives to serving her. This all happened so long ago that it is now known only from the history books. I have given you a very simple version of the answer to that question. You will come to understand more of it, as you spend more of your life with us."

"How do you see in the dark," Ellie asked next.

"We see mostly in the infrared spectrum," the drow replied.

"Can you see in daylight,"

"Yes, to an extent, although daylight on the surface would hurt our eyes."

The door to the room flew open suddenly, and in ran the girl in white, that had been present on Ellie's wedding day. She paused in the doorway, winded for breath, looking as though she had run fast for a good distance.

"I am truly sorry for this interruption," she said, breathing heavy. "I was sent to summon you at once. There has been some trouble in the house. Your assistance is required right away." Ellie, who not not understand the words of the two women's discussion sat listening to them speak anyway, knowing that she would one day learn the odd language that they spoke. The two stood talking in hurried words for a couple of minutes, before the cleric made a gesture to spend her assistant away.

"Horrid, evil, foolish male," the cleric bellowed at nothing in particular, but in Ellie's language, as the girl in white left the room.

"So, my young daughter in law," the cleric said calmly to the human. "You are now a female of drow society. Come along with me, and bring your light. I will teach you how insolent males are dealt with here."

"What is happening," a trembling Ellie dared to ask as she fallowed her mother in law through the hallways of the house.

"Some worthless male fighter of the house has been mocking me and the lower lever clerics of this house. That girl came to tell me that he looked her in the face and said that he would like to... Oh never mind what he said to her. It was something very awful anyway."

"May I ask your name by the way," Ellie questioned boldly, as she fallowed the cleric down a narrow hallway, her light wand in her hand.

"Shi' Vianne" the cleric replied, peering around a corner, and letting out a sudden angry hiss. She burst forward and grabbed a shocked looking young male by the collar of his cloak. She lifted him several inches from the floor. His armor, and the sword that hung at his waist, shone in the light of Ellie's wand.

"I... I..." he mumbled helplessly, "I was only having some fun with my colleagues. I did not mean any of what I said about you, honored cleric of Lolth. Ellie of course understood, as did Shi' Vianne, that the man had just managed to admit to what he had not yet been officially accused of by the cleric.

"Uh huh!" the cleric exclaimed wickedly. "So you admit to your crime."

"No," the young fighter said, as the cleric lifted him several inches higher, then dropped him back onto the stone floor. The fighter was about to take his leave and make a run for it, when the cleric pulled a strange looking whip from her belt, and sent it flying through the air, with lightening speed. The young man screeched in pain and shock as the whip hit his back, before it was pulled back by the cleric. Ellie gasped in surprise as her eyes caught a quick glance at the whip, now loose in the cleric's hand. The whip was from the magically animated heads of four hissing, angry snakes, complete with barred teeth, and glowing eyes. Shi' Vianne let the whip fly forward once again, and the snakes bit painfully into the fighters back, and shoulders, tearing right through his armor.

"Please honored cleric," the fighter begged. "I beg you to forgive me for my impertinence. I will never again think of doing..."

"Enough," Shi' Vianne roared, in sheer rage. Her body becoming more and more tense as the time went on. Shi' Vianne flew into a sudden fury of anger and went to beating the male relentlessly.

"Come along then Ellie," said the cleric, as the man lay dead on the stone floor. "There is still much to be discussed." Ellie was shocked that the woman had just killed a man, and showed no remorse for his death.

Shi' Vianne looked her human daughter in law over when the two were seated once more, where they had been earlier.

"You look... upset," the cleric observed, and Ellie looked around the room nervously.

"I am just a little shocked," she admitted. "I have never seen a person killed before. Did that man really deserve..."  
"He deserved nothing less," the cleric replied firmly. "His behavior was very bold and brazen for a male, don't you think."

"I don't really understand what..." Ellie's words were cut short by a quiet knock at the mitheral door. Shi' Vianne stood up and gave a loud command that Ellie could not understand. She must have called 'enter' in her language, because right away, the door was pushed open by a small body. Into the room walked a small, very cute little drow girl in a white cloak and dress. She eyed the human in curiosity as the spoke to the cleric in a quiet, shy voice.

"This is Naphalee," Shi' Vianne said to Ellie. "She is my youngest of my seven children. She came along at a time when I thought that I would have no more children. I am however very glad to have her." Ellie smiled at the child who smiled shyly at her. Ellie knew that this child, who she learned was nine years old, was not yet at the age beyond her innocence. She had not yet learned to kill like others of her people. The child said something more to her mother, who laughed.

"Naphalee says that everyone is glad that she is a female, because we have no need of more males at this time. She is learning quickly of our ways."

"How many of you seven children are sons," Ellie asked.

"Only Mavash," the cleric replied. "I was very well blessed. Seven children, and six are female"

"Ellie," the cleric called as the human was about to leave the room. "I would like you to be present with my other daughters tomorrow night. We must all take part in a ritual for the goddess."

"I... I will be here," Ellie promised.

Mavash slept soundly most of the night, as his wife lay awake, looking at dark wall across the room. She could see next to nothing in the bedroom, and was glad to have it that way. The darkness gave her time to think, and she thought for hours. She was nervous about the ritual the next evening. She did not know anything about drow religious ceremonies, and she was unsure what to think was coming up. Her mind played and replayed the scene in the hallway that afternoon. She could not rid her mind of the image of the man who lay dying on the stone floor, as the cleric went on beating him.

Finally, after many hours of tossing and turning, she dozed off lightly, and saw in the mind, the image of a long ago memory she just could not shake. In her dreams flashed the image of a man looming over her childhood self, and roughly undoing his clothes, before he tore at hers, as she shrieked in horror.

"Sure a lovely body on such a pretty girl," he whispered in the trembling girl's ear.

Ellie let out a scream, as she flew upright in the bed. She clutched her chest, trying to quiet her pounding heart. Her husband, whom she barely knew at all, woke up with a start. He looked at her in concern, his red eyes glowing in the darkness.

"Are you alright," he asked.

"Yes," Ellie said. "It was just a dream."

"Not a good one, I would have to boldly assume," Mavash said, sitting up in the bed, and looking intently at his wife.

"No," Ellie answered. "Not a good one at all. I dreamed of the man who..." she let her words die before they were spoken.

"Hmm," Mavash muttered, not understanding.

"He did something that no man should ever do to a child," Ellie told him, staring at him in the light of her wand, which he had just passed her to turn on. She could not yet decide if she would ever find him attractive, but she now decided that he wasn't unattractive, and she was glad that he was tall for a drow. He was her hight, and she was thankful to not have to look down at him, while they were both standing up. She absently reached over and flipped an out of place piece of his while hair, behind his pointed ear. He looked at her, muttering a thank you.

"You think you will be able to go back to sleep," he asked.

"I don't think I will dream the same dream again tonight," Ellie replied, and they lay back down, putting out the light. Neither of them slept though any more that night. They simply lay awake taking to one another.

Ellie, dressed in the white cloak that Naphalee had brought to her that afternoon, stood outside the door to Shi' Vianne's workroom, which she had recently learned, was a religious chapel. She looked at the other females around her. Naphalee stood by the wall, looking at the floor. Beside her was the older of the girls in white, whom she had encountered several times already. She was surprised to understand that the young lady was one of Shi' Vianne's daughters. She looked over at the other four females, all of them dressed in dark blue robes embroidered with simple designs in golden thread. She had not met those four of her sisters in law. She smiled at them as they milled about together in a tight group. One of them glared at her aggressively, and two of the others looked her over, curiously. The forth one was repeating a series of words over and over, under her breath, while she tapped one hand on the wall. Ellie guessed that she was trying to memorize something. The priestess finally looked up, saw the humans friendly smile, and gave a quick smile back, before muttering the words again. Ellie saw the older of the girls in white walk over to her.

"I thought that the time was right to formally introduce myself," she said. "I am Shammea, Cleric Shi' Vianne's sixth child."

"It is a pleasure to meet you," Ellie said, and the young woman looked at her in puzzlement. It became obvious that the human greeting was not used among the drow.

"I am certain that you have met Naphalee," Shammea said, brushing off the confusion. "These are the rest of my sisters." She pointed from one to the next. "Meashae, Vaneeha, Hallemy, and Zemmey."

The sound of a bell ringing inside the room behind them, brought all of the females into action. Two of the blue clothed priestesses hurried forward into the room, the older one letting the door slam deliberately in the younger one's face. Within a few minutes, the other two of the older daughters went in the door. The bell rang again, and Naphalee - who Ellie had learned earlier would play a special part in the first ceremony she had been asked to be a part of – looked up at Shammea, unmoving.

"Go... go," Shammea urged, and the little drow began to walk. Shammea took hold of the door to keep it from closing, she motioned Ellie to the doorway, and they. They watched the little girl as she walked down the middle of the room. She began chanting, in a quiet voice.

"Naphalee," her sister called from the doorway, "louder. Chant louder."

Shammea motioned to Ellie to fallow, and she entered the room. Ellie walked to the front and knelt with the rest at the alter. Shi' Vianne called for them all to rise after a few short moments, and the whole group began to chant loudly. Ellie listened to the perfectly recalled words, and wondered what they were saying. From the top of the stairs leading up to the alter, the oldest of the cleric's daughters glared at her, distastefully. The human could strongly sense that Meashae did not like her, and she intended to attempt to discuss the issue with her as soon as she could. At the current moment though, she could see the cleric looking at her, and making motions with her hand, urging her to join in the chant, which was reaching a frenzied pace, as the drow females increased their speed and volume, urgently tying to make their connections with Lolth, the goddess of the underdark. Ellie began to try chanting in the strange language. The chanting of the women had reached such a high volume that she had no fear now of throwing off their concentration by saying a wrong word, She just tried her best.

Ellie soon felt the room fill with an energy that she could not explain. An energy that she was sure the women must have created. Her eyes were drawn to Naphalee. The small girl was, on the command of her oldest sister, pouring something from a cup into the fire burning in front of the alter. The flames shot straight up, rising several feet from the added fuel. The flames, turning to blueish white, nearly caught the girls white cloak in it's fury, and Naphalee jumped back in shock. She forgot the words of her chant for a moment, as she fanned the flames, trying to control the fire. She looked at Ellie triumphantly as she gained control of the flames, and stepped back. Ellie, shaking from fear at nearly seeing the child injured, could not believe that such a tiny child would be given the task of working with flames.

**Well, that chapter was longer then I thought it would be. Oh well, I guess it won't matter. I hope I did an okay job of naming the drow women who were introduced in this chapter. I have no idea of the naming system for drow. If anyone thinks the names, or anything else is wrong, let me know. As always, please review.**


	4. Caught up in madness

Chapter Three. Caught up in madness.

Ellie walked through the halls of the house to which she now belonged. She held her light wand in front of her and looked at the stone walls on either side of her. She thought back to her meeting with the house's matron mother, which had finally occurred that past week. Ellie was still not sure if matron Maia liked her much. As the older sister of Shi' Vianne, she had seemed to have her doubts about her nephew's marriage to "some human", as she had put it. Ellie put her mind to recalling some words from her language lessons, which were coming along better than she ever would have hoped they would. She had set out that evening to wander around the house due to nothing more than boredom. Mavash was out with his fellow fighters, on a week long patrol of the tunnels beyond the city, and Ellie had nothing to do that night. She had tried the passed evening to do some laundry in a water pail, but Shi' Vianne had promptly stopped her, saying that that's what the commoner servants were for. She had thought earlier of leaving the house, and walking out into the city streets to look around, but the cleric had not let her do that either, saying that the streets of the drow city were too dangerous a place for one lone female to walk alone. She looked around a while for Shammea, hoping to have someone to talk to, but after a quick inquiry to a house servant in her poorly spoken drow, she had learned that her young sister in law was busy in her studies of religion, up in her room, and had no time to come down.

Ellie went around a corner and saw Zemmey coming walking out the door to a room, and into the hall, leading Naphalee by the arm. Naphalee, Ellie had learned recently had been given to her sister to be raised until adolescence, as was the usual custom among drow nobles. Ellie had been told that few females of noble houses actually raised their own children. Naphalee, true to usual practice, had been handed off to her sister to be raised from a newborn, although, being a female, she was still valued by her mother, and served as a source of amusement to Shi' Vianne.

Naphalee looked up at Ellie as she walked with her sister, and Zemmey, who looked as though she would rather be doing a million and one things other than raising a child, pulled her along impatiently.

"I will take her from you for a little while," Ellie offered boldly, thinking it would be fun to have a little girl to play with.

"I would be glad and relieved to let you take her for the evening," Zemmey said, and Nahpalee's eyes lit up at the thought of spending time with the patient human for once, instead of her pushy, demanding sister. "I need to take her to our mother for a moment, then I will give her over to you. Just be sure to send her to her bed before she gets too tired."

"Thank you," Ellie answered, she smiled at Naphalee as she looked back while walking.

Thank you," Zemmey said out loud, and under her breath she mumbled, "How nice to have a night away from this high energy, hyperactive brat. Trouble and a half, even though she is a female."

Ellie decided to stand around where she was and wait for the two of them to return. She looked forward to spending time with the little drow child, and sincerely doubted that the little girl would be as much trouble as cranky Zemmey had made her out to be. She always seen Naphalee as a harming little girl. She watched two young fighters across the hall, becoming slightly nervous at the way they eyed her, as though she were a piece of meat. All of a sudden, one began to advance toward her, looking back now and then, at his companion, who gave looks of encouragement to him. Both men now had faces filled with twisted excitement, and Ellie did not doubt their wicked intent.

"Be gone, useless males," the words were out of her mouth before Ellie realized that she even intended to speak. She realized in that moment that she had sounded just like any of the drow women she had heard speaking to men. She was shocked at the influence her new family had upon her. She also realized that the two men were backing away, ready to take their leave, shocked looks planted upon their faces.

"Go on," Ellie screamed. "Get out of here or there will be dire consequences... and take those looks of your faces. Now."

The two men began to quickly walk away, and Ellie watched them go in surprise. Surely she did not have that much power.

She may not have, but Zemmey did. Ellie turned around to see her sister in law coming toward her. She had a wicked glare on her face, and a hand on her snake whip, which hung on her belt, the other hand gently held Nahpalee's arm. Naphalee was dressed in a red cloak, and dress, and wore brown boots on her feet. She wore a belt around her waist to which was attached a wooden training weapon that Ellie had seen a lot of drow children, particularly males wore at their waists.

"Thank God you came along just now," Ellie stammered. "I had no idea how far those two may have gone, if you had not scared them away."

"You were doing a pretty good job of frightening them, before they even saw me," Zemmey said with a laugh. "You shall do a decent job of becoming a frightening woman one day soon, I'm sure."

"Ellie, what's it like on the surface," Naphalee questioned, her big bright eyes staring at Ellie intently. "Is it really a place where a bright ball of raging fire will burn the eyes of anyone who dares look at it."

"It isn't a bad place like you think," Ellie told her with a laugh. "I grew up there and it never burned my eyes. Of course I never looked directly at the sun, but we were always taught to never do that. The surface is full of trees, and grass, and flowers."

"Have you ever climbed one of the trees," Naphalee asked, the volume of her voice rising in excitement.

"I climbed lots of trees," Ellie answered. "I grew up with a lot of elf children. "They, by nature, are good at climbing, and running, and dancing, and singing. I had a very..."

"You know surface elves," Naphalee asked. Her voice lowered to just above a whisper, and her eyes grew wide in wonder.

"My best friends were elves" Ellie answered, and the little drow looked at her in sheer disbelief. She backed up on Ellie and Mavash's bed in her seated position, wiggling with childish excitement. She was sitting too close to the edge though, and soon, she wiggled herself right onto the stone floor, which thankfully was covered by a plush area rug. Ellie jumped up from her seat on the bed, and tried to grab the child, whose head smacked against the metal of the bed frame, with a resounding crack. Ellie, horrified to think that the child was injured lifted Naphalee into her arms, and held her against her body. Hearing none of the much expected cries of pain, Ellie set the child on her feet, and looked to see a disbelieving scowl on Nahpalee's face.

"Didn't you hurt yourself," Ellie asked, relieved at the lack of obvious injury.

"You think I'm just gonna cry 'cause I hit my head," Naphalee said. "I've been hurt worse than that when I fight the warriors"

"You fight" Ellie asked in disbelief.

Naphalee nodded. "Who else would teach me to fight," said Naphalee. "I'm gonna be a fighter one day. I need to practice, and some of them love having a practice opponent."

"I thought you would become a cleric," Ellie said, and Naphalee grinned.

"I'm going to be a cleric, _and_ a fighter," Naphalee explained. She took her wooden training pole from her belt and began to swing it around wildly, taking practice attacks at Ellie, who wondered if a toy like that was a good idea for a nine year old to be playing with. Naphalee ran around the room, making practice attacks at the furniture, and shouting, "die enemies of the mighty drow race."

Ellie began to wonder now if Zemmey had been correct in her mumbled comment about the 'energetic, hyperactive' child. Ellie sat back down on her bed, and waited for Naphalee to tire herself out, a task that took much longer than she was hoping it would. Finally though, Naphalee announced that she was tired, and Ellie took her to her bedroom, still shocked by the young drow's high energy.

Ellie watched with the rest of her family, from the balcony of the house, as the last of the raging

fire died into the darkness , down the narrow street. She was shocked, to say the least, at the casual way that a neighbor's home burnt to the ground. Even Naphalee, who still retained the innocence of her childhood, watched the fire die, with a look of triumph on her face.

"I doubt anyone could have gotten out of that house in time to make any accusations," she said to her mother. Shi' Vianne nodded her agreement and Ellie gave a look of confusion.

"When another house launched an attack tonight on the house that just burned down," Shi' Vianne explained to Ellie, "the attacking house had to make certain that every noble member of that house is dead. That way there is no one left who can make an accusation against the house that attacked them."

"What would happen if someone was left alive, and did accuse them," Ellie found herself asking, unsure that she even wanted to know the answer. She was understanding more every day about the violence of drow society.

"The ruling council for the city would probably burn _their _house to the ground," said Matron Maia, leaning against the railing of the balcony, "making certain that as much of the household as possible is in the house, of course."

"Don't they have the right to a fair trail," Ellie asked. She knew though that her comment had not been something normally said among drow, when she heard the wicked chuckles of the house all around her.

"Fair trail," the matron mother laughed, holding up a hand to stop the laughter of her house. "You don't think that execution is fair."

"Not without a fair trail," Ellie replied boldly.

"Ha," Matron Maia laughed, looking right at her sister, Shi' Vianne, "I like this one more then I thought I would like a surface dweller. Her innocence certainly is good for a laugh or two."

Ellie looked for a few moments at the ground, before walking back into the house. She was not so sure that she wanted her new family laughing at her. Her face began to burn with anger, as she went toward her room. She felt a hand grab her shoulder as she rounded a corner, and she was sure the person attached to that hand must have been hiding in the shadows, waiting for her. She was spun swiftly around by one of the two drow fighters that had tried to bother her the past evening, before Zemmey came to her rescue.

The man, who was about her size, for Ellie was a very small framed human, kept a firm grip on her arm, as he began to drag her around the corner. His leather belt made a firm binding, as he used it to secure her, by the arm, to a metal pipe that ran along a wall, in an out of the way corner of the house. He forced her to the ground, and the belt side down the pipe to allow her her fall. Her head smashed against the stones, and she tried not to react to the pain of her now pounding head. She did not want to give him the satisfaction of knowing that she was injured. Her light wand had fallen from her hand, and he picked it up from the floor, throwing it back over his head. It shone a dim light from down the hall. Ellie saw the man's white hair fall into his face, as he pulled off his armor. She gave him a hard, sharp kick in the knee, as she realized that he meant to take advantage of her.

"I can't act against the will of the females in this house, because as a male, I would not dare," he told her, his face filled with rage. "You though are not a drow. I realized last night after you frightened me away that I need not have listened to you. Your sister is quite scary, but she is not here this time now is she."

"Let me go," Ellie screamed in rage. She tried to smack his across the face, but he grabbed her arm, bending it backwards, until she screeched in pain. The drow fighter just laughed, and shoved her against the wall, an evil smirk pasted on his face.

"I can assure you, my little..." he began to say, before his words were cut off by his howl of pain. Ellie looked up to see Shi' Vianne standing, with the house's matron mother, about eight feet behind the fighter. The cleric grinned, as she held her wicked snake headed whip in the air. Matron Maia glared at the man with fire in her eyes. The man quickly got to his feet, nearly shaking in fear, at the appearance of the two powerful women. Ellie looked at her torn dress and tried to will away the feeling of the man's greedy hands on her body. Part of her wanted to burst into tears of humiliation, at what he had almost done, while the other part of her, the part that was becoming more and more like the drow, wanted him to suffer.

The fighter began to back away, his eyes begging the cleric for mercy.

"Pitiful fool," Shi' Vianne growled. "You are never to treat a female that way. Even though Ellie is a human, she is still a member of this household." Beside her, Matron Maia nodded her agreement. Shi' Vianne raised her whip high over her head, ready to lay a beating on the fighter. Her sister put a hand out and whispered quickly in their home language. Shi' Vianne's eyes lit up wickedly and she put out a hand to help a shaking Ellie to her feet. When the young human was standing, in the terrible glare of the fighter, the cleric handed her the whip.

"Go one Ellie," she said. "This man tried to take something from you that no man had the right to take against a woman's will. You should by all rights, be the one who shall punish him for his intent."

Ellie looked uncertainly from the cleric to the matron mother, and back again. Both women looked hungry for vengeance on the snarling male, who still glared at Ellie in challenge even though she held the whip.

"Do it Ellie," Matron Maia said, her face now sporting a wicked grin. "Show this worthless male the error of his ways."

"I don't think you have the nerve," the fighter said to the human. Evidently, the two drow women intended to let him speak to Ellie, because neither mover to silence him. "You are a good hearted human."

"Don't tease me," Ellie roared with all the rage of a drow female, as she let the whip fly at the fighter. His mouth fell open in a look of shock. Never before had he known anyone to be punished by a human. Encouraged by the cleric, and them by the matron mother, Ellie let her rage and humiliation lend power to her next blow against the man. This time the whip was thrown forward with all the strength of a woman of power, and the man fell back against the wall. Ellie went on whipping him, encouraged by Matron Maia's look of approval, until he fell to the floor. She stopped then, looking down at the unmoving figure of the fighter.

"He's worthless Ellie," Matron Maia said in her ear. "He doubted your value when he tried to take advantage of you. He thinks you are less than you new sisters. Prove him wrong."

Ellie took a few more raging blows against the man, thinking at the same time, of the drooling perverted man from her childhood. The fighters eyes begged her now for mercy, but she had no mercy left for him, in her heart. Soon he ceased to breath, and lay dead on the stone floor. Ellie stood shaking in shock and terror at what she knew she was now capable of becoming. She pushed all remorse from her mind and let the whip drop to the floor.

"I think I like this one more than I thought I ever could," the matron mother said to the cleric, and the two grinned at Ellie with looks of achievement on their faces.

Ellie realized as she walked to her room, that Shi' Vianne, on demand from her sister, had given her the whip as a test. Could the innocent human truly bring herself to kill. Ellie's face took on a grin typical of a drow woman, as she realized that she had passed the test.

**I hope every likes this story so far. I based some of the things in this last chapter on the drow society of the forgotten realms books. I think it's okey to do that. I also did not go into great detail in the scene between Ellie and the fighter, because I don't want to have to change this story's rating back to M. Please review. I like to know what readers think, good or bad. **


	5. Changes and Decisions

Chapter Four. Changes and Decisions.

Ellie pulled open the door and, for her first time, walked into the weapon room. Her mind was filled with doubt, as she looked around the near empty room. It contained a large, stone cabinet along on back wall, and two simple wooden chairs by the door. Matron Maia had sent to to that part of the house, to talk to one of the house's fighters, about training with weapons. She had explained that all females in drow society had some level of training, some more so than others. Ellie shook her head, trying to rid herself of the nagging doubts that filled her head. She watched the expert fighter in the room, as he trained with a young female child, who she soon recognized as Naphalee.

Ellie had only ever seen the little girl practice with a wooden training weapon. Now though, she held a longsword that was over half her hight. The fighter made a swift, but harmless attack against the girl, who countered his move, efficiently blocking him. He pulled his weapon up quickly, and almost tripped over Naphalee's, as she swung it low, two inches above the floor. Ellie knew that most children, the ones that she had grown up with anyway, would have burst into giggles if their teachers almost fell like that, but Naphalee remained perfectly straight faced, as she prepared for the resulting attack move. Her teacher raised his sword and swung, hard and fast, towards her chest, and Naphalee blocked him again, but took several steps backward. Ellie knew that the young drow, had virtually no chance of winning the match against the fighter, but still, she was disappointed to see that he was backing he against a wall, behind her. Naphalee turned her head quickly to look behind her, and seeing that her present course of action would land her backed into a corner, and greatly disadvantaged, she began to swing hard at the fighter, trying to force him back. The blades of their weapons hit together several times, as neither could gain any ground, but both struggled to try.

Ellie watched the two of them in great shock. She had been told by her husband, that Naphalee had been training for roughly six months. That did not seem like very long at all, and already she had some great ability. Naphalee began to make a few small steps forward. She made a move to swing at the fighter then, who blocked her suddenly, with his weapon in front of him. Naphalee had built up some momentum as she dove forward, and she could not stop in time, after seeing the blocking move. Her sword slammed against his, point first, and the handle slammed against her face. She fell to the ground, stunned for several long seconds.

_Oh my god,_ Ellie's mind cried out in panic. She was certain that the child was badly injured, and she waited for the tears of pain that she was sure would occur any moment. She debated with her self, what she should do, for she was certain, from what she had learned of the drow, that there was no one in the house who would care about the injury. Naphalee jumped suddenly to her feet. One hand wiped away the blood, which covered her nose, and the other went to swing at her teacher, while his guard was down.

"You alright," he asked, the first words Ellie heard him speak.

"A drow fighter never stops 'cause of a little blood," Naphalee answered. She blocked his attack against her. "You told me that last week, after you kicked me in the head."

"You learn well young student," the fighter said. While Naphalee was looking the other way, he make a harmless attack at her chest again. This time she did not have time to block the move.

"I a real fight I would have just killed you," he told her. "Therefore, I am the winner."

"I'll beat you one day," Naphalee promised.

"I wouldn't get your hopes up for five more years," he replied.

"How can I assist you," the man asked Ellie, as he approached her.

"I'm Ellie," she replied, knowing that the fact was quite well known in the house, and therefore unneeded. "I was sent here to ask that you teach me something about armed combat."

"I've never trained a human before," the fighter said with a laugh. "I will try but I fear that you are too old to get as far the others do."

Too... old," Ellie stammered in disbelief. "I'm only sixteen, and I just turned sixteen to."

"Naphalee is only nine," the man explained. "That is very young by both drow, and human standards. You are already a sixteen year old human. A human will only live fifty or sixty years. You have already lived out a third or so of your life. A drow will live many centuries, and even we begin to train younger then sixteen."

Ellie was about to take her leave and walk away, when the man looked at her, calling her back.

"I will train you the best I can," he said. "I just think that we should not have false hopes about how far you will go."

"I just need to be able to protect myself in the streets," Ellie told him. "That was the matron mother's request."

"Come back tomorrow, fist thing in the morning," the fighter told her. "We shall begin as soon as possible. I will have to help you choose your most proficient weapon, then we can begin your training."

"Thank you," Ellie said, as she left the room.

"I need to move my training times," Ellie said to her teacher, Vesham one month later. She had come in the evening, on a day that he had given her free from training, needing to speak with him.

"Move your training to another time," Vesham said to her. "Whatever for."

"I... I'm having some trouble getting here early in the mornings. I've... been ill the last week in the mornings."

"And you can come later,"

"Yes... I believe I can."

"Alright, come in mid afternoon tomorrow," Vesham told her.

"And Ellie," He called as she turned to leave. "Please go and speak to a cleric about your illness, as soon as you can."

Ellie nodded, a puzzled look on her face, and left the room. As a male, Vesham, by all rights would normally have known nothing about Ellie's health. He certainly would not have told her to talk with another female right away either. He however had trained enough of the house's females to have a good idea of what was going on. He picked up Ellie's chosen weapon from the cabinet, and held it in his hands, wondering how long until he may now have to train another child to fight – a child like no other in the house.

"You... you really think..." Ellie stammered as Shi' Vianne stared at her. "I... can't..."

"It would seem to me that all of what you told me has happened lately, is a pretty good indication that I am on the right track in my thinking," the cleric answered. "I would have to say that there is a good chance that you are indeed pregnant. You will have to wait a couple of months to be sure. You will notice, if I am right, that you are getting bigger. Just wait and see."

"Wh... what shall I do if I am indeed... pregnant," Ellie asked.

"You then must do as all drow females do," Shi' Vianne told her. "Give your thanks to Lolth, and ask her for a daughter. Of course, a male is useful to in some ways, but we do tend to want daughters in this society."

"What does it mean if a baby is male," Ellie asked. "Does it mean that the goddess favors another woman more than..."

"It could mean a lot of things," the cleric answered. "Perhaps just that there are not enough males."

Ellie became certain that she was indeed pregnant, as over the next months, her dresses grew tighter, and tighter. Her small body, began to put on weight, mostly all in front, and soon there could be no doubt at all. She went on training with Vesham until one day when Matron Maia told her that she was to stop training.

Four days after that, Mavash was killed.

He died in battle, out on a routine patrol in the tunnels outside of the city. Little was known of the circumstances surrounding his death, except that he was found dead after running ahead of his patrol group. Some believed that another drow had killed him.

"What am I to do now," Ellie asked. She did not truly grieve for her fallen husband. She had not really known him. She thought of her life on the surface Her father had died in the passed years, and she could not return to the elven village where she was raised, with a half drow child. Could she...

"What would you like to do," Matron Maia asked. She leaned forward in her chair, at looked from Ellie to Shi' Vianne, who sat with some of the other high ranked house females, to plan Ellie's fate now that Mavash was dead.

"I... don't know," Ellie answered honestly, her hand on her now very large stomach. Her baby kicked once, as if to tell her to make a choice, and soon.

"You understand how you came to be Mavash's wife, I would assume," Shi' Vianne said, and Ellie nodded, thinking of the story she had been told of her fathers bargain to save the tribe of elves that his brother in law was a part of. She felt no more anger toward her father than she even had. If he had not done what he did, then she may not even be alive at that moment. Nor would many of the people who had helped to raise her.

"With Mavash dead, then that must have to mean that the bargain is broken," Shi' Vianne said.

"Is it truly broken, as you think it is," questioned Matron Maia's daughter, Sillvee. She glanced at Ellie, then said, "after all, don't you think that perhaps her becoming pregnant so quickly means that there is some reason for her to..."

"I say send her back to the surface," Meashea said, looking at Ellie in her usual disgust. It was no secret that the oldest of her sisters in law had never liked her much.

"That may not be what we are..." Vaneeha began to say. Her older sister glared at her, with fire in her eyes.

"She is not a drow," Meashea told everyone, her voice raising to a disturbing volume. "Why must we take in some human from the dreaded surface, and just let her be one of us."

"But, her pregnancy could very well imply something about the will of Lolth," Vaneeha pressed on, ignoring her sister's angry glare. "I think that Ellie should stay with us here."

"Mavash is dead!" Meashea roared, getting to her feet, and glared even harder at her sister. "The bargain is therefore broken. We don't want her here any more!"

"I wonder if our best choice would be to send Ellie back," Sillvee mused, looking to her mother, for agreement. Matron Maia however shook her head.

"I intended all along to leave it up to Ellie," she said. "I feel that that is the best course of action at this time. Ellie, what is you desire at this time."

Ellie thought everything over for more long moments. Having grown up in an elf community, Ellie, even though she was a human, should have loyalty to the elves, and therefore hate the drow. She however, had never hated the drow. Her new family, that had taken her in to complete the long made bargain, had never shown her true reason to hate them. The whole thing though, was complicated by the fact that she was pregnant. Part of her wanted to go home, to her village on the surface. She though, could not picture the reactions of the elves, when she told them had her baby was the child of a drow. She knew that they would forgive her for her actions in the underdark, but could they forgive the child, who was not yet born, just for being what it was.

"I... I will stay here," Ellie said after a few moments hesitation.


	6. The Child and the Conspiracy

I am back finally. I am truly sorry that it has taken me so long to post this next chapter for the readers. I have not had much time to write lately, as I have been working on other projects.

**Warning... the end of this chapter contains violence. If this bothers anyone, please skip the end.**

As always, please review.

Chapter five.

"I say how wonderful that Ellie was at least blessed with a female child, although she can do not much else right,"Meashea said, looking at her mother with her usual smirk on her face.

"She looks like a drow with green eyes," said Zemmey, taking the newborn from her sister, and looking her over a little bit.

"Give her to me for a minute," Vaneeha demanded. She took the baby and looked at the side of her head. "Look at her ears, though," she pointed out. "She doesn't have elf ears at all."

"They aren't human ears either," Meashea said smirking still, this time at the second oldest of the sisters.

"She has the ears and features of a half elven child," Zemmey said smugly.

"Of course she does," said Vaneeha and Meashea at the same moment, both wanting to appear as though they had thought of that fact long before their younger sister had.

"I think she's pretty," Hallemy told them all, after she had grabbed the newborn from Vaneeha.

"She will grow up to be a valued member of the ranks of household females," Shi' Vianne told her four oldest daughters, giving each a look of seriousness to see that each knew she meant it. She took the baby next.

"She's not a real drow," Meashea protested. "I don't think that she can ever be as valued as we..."

"She will be raised as a drow," Shi' Vianne told her, with a severe look in her eyes. "I expect her to be treated like any other female drow child. And when she's older, I..." Her speech was interrupted by the opening of the door to Ellie's room. Shammea and Naphalee came in and crowded in with the others. Shammea looked at the newborn girl that her mother held, while Naphalee, who was considerably shorter than the rest of them, tried to peek around the shoulders of her sisters. Shammea reached out, trying to take the baby from her mother, and Meashea gave her a hard smack across her face. Shi' Vianne gave her oldest child a look of anger then, and handed the baby to Shammea, who found the nerve to dare to give her oldest sister a smirk. Meashea turned her nose up in the air, and stomped out of the room, nearly bumping into Matron Maia, who was on her way into the room with Sillvee, and her younger daughter, Ginnea. Matron Maia let the angry woman pass, but Sillvee stared Meashea down with disgust, until she had rounded a corner.

Matron Maia took the newborn from Shammea and looked the baby over. She handed the child to Sillvee, who took her and with complete lack of interest, held her loosely in her arms. The baby, finally growing tired of the constant passing from person to person, began to squeal in disgust, wanting to be given back to her mother. Sillvee, annoyed at the crying, passed the child of to her sister, who shook her head, not wanting to hold the child. Shi' Vianne took the newborn and took her to Ellie, who was nearly asleep and exhausted on her bed. The cleric shook her awake and gave her the baby. Ellie took her, and she began to stop crying.

"What is the name of our house's newest member," asked Matron Maia, wanting to move ahead with arrangements involving the newborn.

"I... I don't know..." Ellie muttered. Her mind raced through all the possible drow names she could think of, that did not already belong to a member of the house. Nine drow females all stared at her, waiting anxiously for the human to name her child.

"Veesha," Ellie said finally, settling on a name that she liked. "Her name shall be Veesha."

"You have no older daughter to let raise her," the matron mother said. "So, in accordance with drow noble custom, she will be given to another household female to raise. You will then only have to worry about key parts of her life. You should now assign her as the duty of another of these young woman."

"I... I..." Ellie stammered, holding her child closer to her chest.

"I will help you with this arrangement," Shi' Vianne offered, thinking the human to be unsure of her decision. "Zemmey already has Naphalee to care for. Shammea is still a bit young for the task. You two older sisters are both high priestesses and are so busy that they haven't the time for this. As are Sillvee and Ginnea."

Behind her mother, Hallemy tried to hide the look of sudden dread that came to her eyes at the realization of what was sure to be said next.

"I do believe that leaves Hallemy," said Shi' Vianne, as if on cue. "Or the option of one of the lower cleric of the house. However that is not the best choice. I however leave it to you to choose who will..."

"I want to take care of her myself," Ellie said, and the cleric gave a look of surprise.

"Why would you want to..."

"I have always dreamed of what it would be like to finally have my own child," Ellie said. I will not just give her to some other woman to raise. I love her."

"It is foolish in our world for a mother to have maternal love for her child," Shi' Vianne advised, looking for some reason at her sister. Ellie only stared at the baby with determination on her face, and the cleric was forced to back down. It was after all, Ellie's choice to do as she pleased.

Ellie sat that night with the baby, studying her daughter's tiny, delicate features. Her skin was dark gray, like that of a drow, but her eyes were the same green of many humans. She had tiny, pointed ears, which lay flat against her head. Instead of the white hair of the drow race, the baby's was a pale blond color like her mother's. Ellie, although she knew that the baby could not understand a word she said, began to tell Veesha about life on the surface of the world. A place that she still missed from time to time, sometimes more than others.

Matron Maia had been sitting quietly, carefully reading over an old book had she had studied many times in her life, when her oldest daughter burst into the room. Sillvee stood, with a scowl set upon her face, staring at her mother in disgust. She suddenly kicked a wooden chair across the room with such force that it knocked over a small reading table in the corner. The matron mother hardly dared to ask what the latest of Sillvee's fits of rage was about. She knew that her daughter was almost always lately in some sort of huff over something. Sillvee paced across the room, and back again, her arms swinging wildly.

"What is it," Matron Maia finally asked, almost finding that she dreaded hearing the answer.

"There was another attack tonight," Sillvee said, her voice almost at a shouting volume.

"I know of that," the matron mother said in curtly. "Why do you come to me with such well known information... and why are you shouting and kicking chairs around."

"Why were you not out with the family, watching the fall of another noble house," Sillvee demanded. "Even Ellie was out, with that silly infant on her back looking quite happy to see another house fall."

"I was reading," Matron Maia said, frustrated by her daughter's anger. She set the book down on her chair as she got to her feet.

"Why do you stay in here reading some silly clerical book when you could celebrate the misfortune of someone else," Sillvee said. She picked the large hard bound book up, and threw it across the room. It landed near the chair, and the knocked over table.

"There will be other attacks on other houses," the matron said calmly.

"We have moved up a rank now, because of the fall tonight," Sillvee said, and she turned to her mother with furry in her eyes. "No thanks to you, of course."

"What is meant by that," Matron Maia asked, her defenses going up, and her voice rising.

"We are the thirty-forth ranked house now," Sillvee exploded, her hands planted firmly on her hips. "We could have been much more than that, by now if you ever waged war against other houses."

"I don't feel motivated to do so," Matron Maia said simply.

"You don't feel motivated to do anything it seems. You just let things go on around you, and you do nothing. This house has never gone to war to my knowledge. How do you ever expect to gain respect in the city if you never make your power known."

"I have respect. I am a matron mother. I think that to be a position of respect."

"But you never do anything except to look for simple ways to keep yourself amused. You are like a child."

The Matron mother raised her hand slightly, intending to smack her daughter across the face for such disrespect, but she slowly lowered her hand again, sure that Sillvee would not be deterred by a slap anyway. She just stared at her daughter in disbelief, trying her best to let her anger show on her face. She wanted nothing more at that moment than to take her by the arm, and shove her out the door, into the hallway, before letting the door slam shut. She however stood her ground, determined not to let Sillvee intimidate her.

"I must be doing something right," she said. I have kept this house under control for four hundred years. We have never been under attack even once in that time."

"I am amazed every day that that hasn't happened yet," Sillvee retorted. "You have managed to make this house into an easy target."

"Leave me now," Matron Maia said, tired of fighting with her daughter.

"You wait until I take over one day," Sillvee said, walking toward the door. "I will bring this house to the high ranks in the city, through my own want of power."

"You don't know a thing about the role of a matron mother," Maia replied, retrieving her book, and turning the table upright.

"Neither do you," Sillvee replied, before leaving. "You will surly lead us all to ruin." Sillvee pulled a scroll of parchment paper from under her cloak and threw it to the table in anger.

You might want to look at this and consider the consequences very carefully," she declared before turning proudly on her heel to leave. "This was given to me today by our house's chief infiltrator."

The door shut with a loud bang, as Sillvee walked away, and Matron Maia, for the first time felt real fear. She knew that her oldest daughter, at almost four hundred years old, was old enough, and strong enough to overthrow her at any time. Filled with dread, she picked up the parchment, and unrolled it, reading the words over several times, before throwing it back to the table in disbelief.

She wandered to the door, and pulled it open, looking out into the hallway absently. Ellie happened to be on her way down the hall at the time, and she called out to her, thinking that the young human would be someone different to talk with. As always, the Matron had a plan. Ellie looked up at her, a look of nervousness on her face.

"Ellie," said Matron Maia, "Come in here for a while. I want to talk with you."

Ellie entered the sitting room, holding her light wand in front of her, and looked around the well decorated room. She stood, with her two month old daughter in the carrying cloak on her back, until the matron mother gestured for her to be seated in a chair across from her own. Ellie took the cloak off her back, and placed the baby, wrapped up in it, on her lap. She sat waiting for the matron mother to speak, while hoping that she had not done something to get herself into serious trouble. She knew that among the drow, failure and mistakes were often not tolerated.

"Ellie," Matron Maia began, "you are an outsider in this community. Therefore it would seem that you are the best person to ask about this."

"Oh," Ellie said greatly surprised to realize that this drow matron wanted advice from her.

"Do you think that I am letting every chance to gain power pass by," Matron Maia asked.

"I... I really don't think so," Ellie answered.

"You are not simply humoring me, I trust," the matron mother said, with a strange look on her face. "You do know that I expect honesty, I am sure."

"Yes, of course," Ellie answered, feeling quite unnerved by having to spend time alone with the drow matron.

"Why do you stay with us?" Maia asked suddenly, and Ellie thought carefully over her words of reply. She was beginning to sense a trap.

"I have nowhere else to go really," she said finally.

"You could have gone back to your village."

"Not with Veesha. People would never accept a half drow child."

"She would be accepted here," said Matron Maia firmly. "Why did you not simply leave her with us, and go?"

"I won't abandon my child," Ellie said just as firmly.

"Huh," Maia said with a laugh. "I never thought it possible until now."

"What?" Ellie found the courage to ask.

"I think you, the little human, are loyal to the drow."

"You are my family," Ellie replied boldly, not liking the direction that the discussion was taking. She hoped for a way out of that talk, and soon.

"Family?" Maia said in her strange tone. "Family is a concept of the surface dwellers. We know not much of loyalty or of family. However..." her tone grew suddenly frightening as she looked the human in the eyes. "...if loyalty is something you desire to feel toward us, then who am I to stop you. You are after all a human. How would you like to prove you loyalty to this house?"

"Uh... alright," said Ellie, feeling her hands begin to shake. She knew that to a drow, pride was one of the most important parts of life, and she felt herself feeling more and more pride within herself with each passing day.

"There is a favor I would like carried out for me," Matron Maia began to explain, thoroughly enjoying Ellie's growing nervousness. "Valzen Myate, A sky of an enemy house has gathered some highly valued information about this house. He will not report it to his house mother until he has gathered the final, missing pieces of the facts he needs for them to launch an attack on our house. We need to get to him before he can gather those facts and report. If he makes his report, we will be overpowered by house Myate and there will surely be no stopping them. Their house is far too powerful for us to stand a chance."

"What do you wish me to do?" Ellie questioned. She was determined to serve her house, and her matron mother to the best of her abilities, and would do anything asked of her to prove her worth to the drow.

"Kill Valzen Myate," Matron Maia said, her voice low and serious. Kill him today, before he can gather that information, and report to his house.

Ellie's hands shook as she reached silently for her blade which was clipped to her pants. She let go of the handle once again and let the small, deadly knife hung, hidden from sight as she watched the arrogant drow male approach. She stayed where she was, hidden in the crevice in the rock wall beside the street in a silent part of Menzobarrenzan. No one but the cocky drow was in sight, and Ellie thanked Lolth for her good luck. She had by now come to accept the drow goddess as her deity. Ellie watched the spy come toward her, still unaware of her presence. She went over the plan once more in her mind. The plan that she had secretly went over with Matron Maia several times before setting out into the city streets. Stand in this hidden crevice and wait. Watch for Valzen to get closer and step out looking lost and helpless. Let him gain her trust and...

'Now,' Ellie told herself as the drow came closer. She stepped out from her hiding place and stood out on the quiet street. Valzen stopped for a brief second, which seemed never to end, while his red eyes took her in.

"Lost, are you?" he said finally, taking a step forward.

"Y... yes. I... I..." Ellie stammered, her hesitant words the result of her nervousness, but also doing a wonderful job of convincing the drow of her faked helplessness.

"You're a human," Valzen stated flatly, as though it was a fact that needed stating. "Not many humans in the city of drow." He walked toward her with confidence now, and Ellie, dressed in the men's pants and simple shirt that Matron Maia had given her to wear, was sure that he was not convinced of her disguise as a runaway surface dweller, unfortunate to have wandered into the underdark.

"Please," said Ellie, speaking common. "Have mercy on me and let me go back to the surface. I... I won't tell anyone that I..."

"Are you really a runaway human?" Valzen questioned. "Something about you seems a little to... familiar to the underdark. I smell a trick."

"N... no trick. I have lost my way." Ellie played the part perfectly, and wrung her hands together in mock terror, as she stared at the drow.

"You are no use to me," he stated flatly. "Go back home. I have no time deal with you now."

"Th... thank you," Ellie said. "H... h... how do I get to the tunnel, noble drow?"

"That way," Valzen told her. He turned his back on her to point to the way up, something Ellie had been counting on. She crept up closer behind him, with rehearsed quietness in her footsteps. Slowly her hand went for the knife on her pants and suddenly it was in her right hand, and poised to strike. The drow spun around then to look upon her, and his eyes grew wide as the dagger went for his heart. Valzen Myate fell against the cold stone wall of the drow city, his hand clutching his chest, and covered with his blood.

"You..." he gasped. "The human adopted by house De' Afin." He fell dead on the stone floor of the city.

"Triumph for the favor of Lolth," Ellie said quietly, her hands shaking anew as she searched his clothes for the medallion of his house. A prize that she would bring back to her matron mother.


	7. Death Match

**Hello again everyone. I am finally back from a month out of town and away from my computer. While on holidays I came up with some great new plot twists for this story that I hope you will like. Please R&R.**

Chapter seven

Naphalee stared at Naldan with a look of surprise on her young face. She looked her cousin over from the top of his head, to the soles of his boots. The young son of Matron Maia inched backward slowly, fearing his cousin greatly at that moment. At only a year younger than himself, and a female, she was both his main playmate, and a force to be reckoned with.

"I disagree with your opinion of Veesha," she told him now, stepping forward to match every step he took backward. "She is a smart baby. Not delayed in development, like you think."

"She's the daughter of a human," Naldan argued, futilely as Naphalee backed him into the wall of the training gym.

"Yes... I know that..." Naphalee told him slowly, her tone becoming angry. "What? Do I look stupid to you? Of course Ellie is human, foolish male."

"I never meant to imply that you were..." Naldan began to say, as Naphalee drew her weapon; a real metal weapon this time, not her wooden practice weapon. She backed him up the final step against the wall and flashed him a wicked grin. Fire burned in her red eyes.

"You're nine years old," Naldan told her desperately. "You don't have the heart to kill yet."

Naphalee stared at him, the anger still filling her eyes.

"I'm the son of a matron mother," Naldan said, looking for a last hope. "You would not kill Matron Maia's child..."

"When are you going to learn to keep your dignity in front of a female?" Naphalee asked him. She was truly enjoying toying with her cousin. She had never intended to kill him, but she was doing all she could to keep her look of fury from being overtaken by her laughter. The boy looked absolutely terrified. His eyes were wide with horror and he would not take his gaze from her, for fear that she would strike him with her blade.

"Naphalee," Zemmey called from the door, which she had silently opened, "come on now to bed, and stop toying with the male."

She grinned at her sister as they walked out into the hall. "You will have a whole lifetime ahead of you to torment the males."

After sending her sister off to bed, Zemmey walked the halls of the house, thinking that she would go off to bed herself. As she rounded a corner, Shammea came out the door of the dinning room. Her eyes were big and her hands shook with excitement.

"Meashea and Sillvee have become engaged in what looks to be turning into a death match," she explained to her sister. Zemmey thought only of trying to break up the fight before someone really got hurt, while a small part of her mind told her that one less relative to deal with if one was killed could not be a bad thing at all. She charged into the room behind her sister, yelling a half-hearted plea to stop fighting.

"You're nothing but trash," Sillvee yelled at Meashea, while swinging with her makeshift weapon, which happened to be the broken leg from an old chair.

"You'll die for this!" Meashea screamed back reaching for her whip, which had been dropped nearby. Sillvee Struck her cousin across the back of the head several times and soon Meashea fell to the floor.

"I'll get you for this," she shrieked, trying to stand, while blood soaked her white hair and dress.

"I should have just stabbed you in the back when I had the chance," Sillvee cried as her cousin managed a good kick to her kneecap.

Both women were back on their feet, Meashea with some difficulty, and both looked at the other with rage in her red eyes. Sillvee was limping badly now, her knee likely broken, but she ignored the pain and advanced on Meashea furiously.

"I will be glad to be rid of one other female," she yelled, as she shoved her opponent backward.

"You will live to regret this," Meashea screamed, stumbling back several steps. She was already mortally injured by the blows to her head, and the blood loss, but the heat of battle kept her on her feet. She probably had barely even noticed that her head was soaked with blood.

Zemmey was a high level cleric, and could easily have sent her sister enough healing to save her life, but the thought of one less sister to compete with for position so enticed her that she stood, doing nothing. Sillvee pushed forward with all her weight, her arms lifting Meashea off the floor. The badly injured drow flew several feet back, her head striking the corner of the dinning table. She lay unmoving on the cold stone floor, dead instantly. Still Zemmey did nothing. Her greed for position had finally consumed her, and she now made a point of calling herself the third daughter, in her mind.

Shammea looked up at Zemmey with a look of comprehension in her eyes. She was only forty-six, still very young by drow standards, but she finally had a true understanding of the way of her people. She knew that fifth daughter was not a high ranked birth position. She was now forth daughter, and that was better... Third however was even better than forth, and Hellamy might soon be easy enough to destroy. Her still hidden pregnancy, the one that she had confided only to Shammea herself, would soon make her slow to fight back.

_Ten years later_

Veesha jumped down from the rock ledge behind her family house. She dropped into a low crouch, and held her wooden training sword in front of her with both hand, in blocking position. She turned on her heels, and scanned her field of vision for 'enemies' as she got slowly to her feet. Her new blue dress caught on a rock as she turned back behind her, and tore at the seam. Veesha shrugged in dismissal of the damage to her clothing, and ran for the rocky embankment across the walkway. She scrambled up the small cliff awkwardly, her knees scrapping on the rocks as she pulled herself over the top. She tried at the last moment for a neat little jump onto the ledge, and banged her elbow on the rocks in the process. For a moment she wished she had the natural grace of the other drow children, and once again had to remind herself the her mother was not a drow. Quick as always, to recover from her disheartened thoughts, she got to her feet atop the cliff, and looked for Naphalee, hiding somewhere, waiting to attack. She spotted her about to make for the edge of the cliff, ready to climb to the next ledge up.

"Got you!" she cried swinging her wooden weapon toward the older girl, as Naphalee prepared to counter to blow. Wooden swords slammed together, with a graceless bang, and Veesha fell to the ground, knocked off her feet. She recovered quickly and jumped up before the 'fatal blow' by Naphalee. She swung her weapon high over her head, as Naphalee raised hers to meet the blow. She countered again and Veesha was forced to back up, as she fallowed her counter with an offensive attack, that Veesha, the less experienced of the two, could not stop. She bumped clumsily into the wall behind her.

"What do you think will become of your life Naphalee," Veesha asked as the two sat at the top of the cliff. "You are sure to become a great fighter."

"No," Naphalee answered. "Never great like a male would be. I am becoming a young woman now, and soon I will be made to conduct myself as one."

"I think you are very ladylike," Veesha said. "I wish sometimes that I could match your grace, and look as proud and beautiful as you."

"You will when you get older," Naphalee answered.

"Some people say I'm just not pretty, because I look too much like a human."

"I don't think human features make you less pretty."

"Thanks Naphalee... I have a question."

"Huh?"

"Why is my mother here? Why is my father a drow?"

"I was very young when your mother came here," Naphalee said. "I don't yet know the whole story... all the details. I know that your mother's father gave her to my mother as a wife for my now dead brother. It had something to do with spearing the lives of some surface elves. Beyond that, I know nothing else."

"Why would someone bargain to save surface elves?" Veesha muttered, her face puzzled. Naphalee laughed.

"Even looking so human, you still sound so much like a drow," she remarked, filled with approval at her best friend's attitude.

"Come on," she said after a few silent moments, "no one knows we are here. You are not even supposed to be out of the house."

"What do you think it's like on the surface?" Veesha asked as they walked back.

"Different from our world, I would imagine," Naphalee answered. "I cannot even begin to picture it. That blazing fireball in the sky above, and the water that falls from the sky."

"It must be amazing," Veesha remarked as they entered the house. "One day I plan to see it."

"Veesha," Ellie exclaimed in annoyance, looking at her daughters torn dress, and skinned knees.

"What in the world have you gotten yourself into this time?"

"Climbing the cliffs," Naphalee answered. She stood behind her friend, looking at her human sister, begging understanding. Ellie looked her daughter over, and took an inventory of her appearance. Both knees scraped, one of them bleeding, and both of them still scarred from the last time she had hurt herself. Her new dress was torn badly at the left side, and her forehead was scratched by a rough rock. Her wooden training sword was cracked along the center of the blade, and hung limp in her torn belt holder.

"Not a very graceful child now are you?" said a familiar feminine voice in the doorway. Ellie, Veesha, and Naphalee, all looked up to meet their matron mother's critical gaze. Naphalee quickly made her way out into the hallway, and Ellie looked up in guarded respect. Matron Maia was after all in her living space. The matron walked slowly toward Veesha, who stood before her mother, and tipped her chin upward with the tips of her slender, graceful fingers. Ellie stepped aside, a Veesha looked up respectfully, trying to will her hands to stop shaking.

"Just look at what you have done to your new dress," Matron Maia said in a slow, even voice. "And you are all scrapped up too. It is quite unbecoming of a drow, especially a lady, to do such damage to her lovely young figure."

"I am truly sorry Matron Mother," Veesha answered, when it had become apparent that she was to speak. "I can't seem to help slipping and tripping over things." Matron Maia, with missing a beat, snatched up a small book form Ellie's bookshelf, and set it squarely on Veesha's head. "Now walk across the room," she commanded, "and do not allow the book to fall."

Veesha took small, careful steps forward, toward the far wall, trying her hardest to keep her head straight up, and her movements graceful. She made it to the other end and stood, waiting for her next task.

"Come back then," said the matron mother, "and go faster this time. You will need to learn to move at a good speed without being a graceless clumsy girl."

Veesha spent the next week practicing anyway she could to learn the grace of her drow kin. She tried to climb, and swing her weapon, and even jump, all with books balanced on her head.

"You are learning well child," matron Maia told her one day, after catching her practicing her her wooden weapon, alone in the training gym.

Veesha immediately dropped the weapon to the ground, and looked up nervously at the matron mother. She wanted, as she had always wanted, to please her matron. She looked up at her now, and admired her beauty as most others did. Every other drow female had long envied Maia's perfect figure, her tall thin frame, long white hair falling in perfect waves, and in Veesha's case, her incredible grace. The half human child, also greatly feared her, for her power and her command of her house. The matron stood today in a long red dress, that reached the floor, and swept around her body as she moved. Veesha had only recently learned that Matron Maia was pregnant with her eighth child, and upon learning this, had joined the others in hoping that the child would be female. She know that a house could always use more girls to grow up to be priestesses. She knew that she herself had some great worth as a female, even though she would never actually hold the tile of priestess herself because her mother was human. It was still better than what she would have in life if she had been male.

"Never drop you weapon," Matron Maia said softly, with a edge of concern in her voice. She leaned down and picked up the wooden sword, handing it back to the child. Veesha reached out slowly and took it, greatly fearing a stern warning about her carelessness.

"A good fighter will never drop her weapon," was all she said however. "You could get yourself killed by someone just waiting for the chance to catch you unarmed."

Veesha stood looking up the Matron Maia, who actually gave her a slow unsure smile, before walking toward the door. As an afterthought though, she came back to where the child stood and leaned down to her head.

"Don't ever let the rest of our world tell you that you are less than the rest of us," she whispered slowly. "You will be great on day, I am sure." She stood again and walked with purpose to the door, and out into the hall, leaving Veesha alone to wonder what in the world had just happened.

Veesha stood in front of Ellie her body pressed against her mother's chest nervously, as the two of them stood with the rest of the family females in the house chapel, where they had been asked by a lower cleric to assemble. All awaited news of Matron Maia's new baby, who should have be born at any moment. The child looked anxiously around at the others as another of the house clerics ran into the room, and out the other door, the quickest way across to the stairwell, with an armload of blood soaked bedding. The cleric passed the bedding off to a young drow male, a house servant waiting by the door, and he rushed off. The shaking cleric rushed back to the back door leading to the matron's living chambers, half supported partway across the room by another trembling young cleric. The group of women, who had assembled with the typical intent of welcoming a new child into the house, began to look to one another in fear and dismay. Several long moments passed before one of the two cleric's, the one who had come into the room only long enough to help the first one, ran out of the room, and raced for the stairs, both doors slamming instantly. Her feet banged on each step as the ran, panic stricken, out of earshot. She came back up the stairs and into the chapel fallowed by several other females, more lower clerics, and the matron's sister, Shi'Vianne. They quickly crossed the room and disappeared into the room beyond.

The gathered house members, including Matron Maia's children, all began several different conversations in the silent hand code of the drow. Veesha looked at her mother her face filled with a dread she could not explain, and saw that Ellie's face wore the some expression. The back door to the chapel opened once more many minutes later and a cleric entered carrying a loosely bundled, shrieking baby girl. The cleric was shaking with shock, and holding the baby to her in grief.

"It is my saddest regret," she said, her voice trembling, "to tell you that our highly regarded Matron mother has died." She handed the baby to Shi'Vianne as two other young clerics entered the room. The three young women came together into on another's arms and stayed for several moments hugging each other in a corner by the door.

Drow were noted for their desire to get ahead and hold the highest position of power that they could. Those there clerics normally would have thought mainly of attaining to the rack of high priestesses, and would not normally have show such compassion to one another. One of them, just a week before, had tried to kill another, in front of the third one. The attempt had been foiled only when the intended victim had turned around, seen the intent on her would be killer's face, and kicked the dagger out of her hand. The three lost, and leaderless young clerics came together now only out of shock and grief. They certainly had no intent toward lasting friendship on their minds.

Sillvee entered the meeting room that she had met with her mother in so many times in her life. She looked around at the bright decor that Maia had chosen for it's uniqueness and value, and then to the chair at the head of the large stone table, that her mother had spent a good deal of time sitting in leading the business of her house. Sillvee should, if she had been of any other intelligent race in the realms, have grieved for her mother. But Sillvee was a drow... and a particularly heartless, power hungry one at that. She saw her chance now, the chance that she had wait for patiently for, biding her time for many decades. She sat in the chair.

Sillvee looked over from her place at the head of the empty table and smiled at what she knew would be a mighty reign of power. She walked back to the chapel with a new bounce to her step. Her mother had been dead for only an hour, and all those now gathered in the chapel to talk over what had happened, acted with neither surprise, nor disapproval when she took the matron mother's seat on the platform, beside the stature of their goddess. With Maia dead, it was now the right of her first born daughter to take that position.

"Matron Sillvee..." Zemmey said uncertainly, not used to the sound of those words. "The baby will need a name. An... and soon, if we are to dedicate her to Lolth as we must soon do."

"I know of the need to name her," Sillvee said in a tone of annoyance. "I have more important things right now than to name a baby."

"Shammea," she snapped after a pause, her finger pointing straight at her shocked cousin. Shammea looked up at her as she took the baby from Shi'Vianne and held the quietly crying bundle out to her.

"You will raise this one," she said. "Choose whatever name you see fitting. She will be dedicated in three days as par our custom." Shammea stepped up and took the baby, wishing she dared to protest. She was sure she would have had such nerve in the face of Matron Maia, but Sillvee was somehow different.

Several moments later, when Sillvee brought forward the topic of dealing with her mother's body, the young Veesha was the only one who looked sad at her loss.


	8. looking back

Chapter seven. Looking back.

_Ellie keeled in the garden picking carrots. She had worked in the communal growing space for many years now and she knew all there was to know about growing vegetables. She put more big carrots into her basket and moved onto potatoes, taking just what she would need for her family's supper. Picking up her basket, as she stood, Ellie hurried back to the small house that she shared with her father, her aunt and uncle, and three young cousins, as well as a much older cousin, his wife and a small baby. The three children ran up as she came in, and began to take the vegetables from the basket. The two boys began to toss a potato back and forth, shouting wildly, while the girl, close to Ellie's age, laughed quietly as she began to chop carrots with a sharpened knife. The baby lay on the floor making noises to herself, as she waited to be picked up by whoever got around to it first._

_As the soup cooked in the pot on the wood stove, Ellie came to her father's call, and joined him on the step, in front of the small, crowded house._

_"You are soon to be fifteen Ellie," her father said, as she sat, looking at the sun shinning though the thick leaves of the trees near the house._

_"Yes, I know," Ellie replied. "And married. I know, I have been promised to someone at age fifteen. You have always made sure I knew that, but I have never learned the name of my soon to be husband."_

_"I am not certain that you should learn his name just yet," Davian said, looking at his daughter, dressed in her thin gray dress, her blond hair flowing loose in the light wind._

_"I am going to be married in only three months now," Ellie begged. "Please, let me finally know the name of the man who will be my husband." Ellie straighten her shoulders and looked at her father, excitement growing in her eyes, as she pictured what the man be._

_"Is he human, like us?" she questioned. "Or perhaps an elf, maybe a relative of someone here in the village. I hope he is not some..."_

_"He is an elf, so to speak," Davian answered reluctantly._

_"So to speak?" Ellie questioned in puzzlement. "An elf is an elf... right?" She was growing nervous. There was something he was not saying, but why?_

_"Please," she begged, "who is he? Why won't you tell me about this?"_

_"His name is Mavash De'Afin," said Davian reluctantly, "of Menzobarranzen."_

_"Menzobarranzen?" Ellie muttered to herself, trying to place that name. Where had she heard that city's name before._

_Her heart began to pound so fast that she feared her chest would burst, as the realization hit her. She looked at her father, and tried to stop her hopeless shaking._

_"A drow?" she said in a barely audible whisper. "How could this be?"_

_"Ellie, I am most truly sorry for my promise to that cleric," Davian said, as his daughter sat staring at him in shock, too shaken to make a move. "At the time, it seemed right. I only did it to spare this village, you, and myself from a drow raiding party. Please Ellie, you must understand..."_

_"I... I think... I should go..."_

_"No. Please don't go running from us. Your life will not be as bad as you think it will."_

_"Not as bad?'" Ellie questioned shakily. "Drow hate almost everyone. How can I marry someone so evil? Do I even want to know what he wants with a human wife?"_

_"Ellie," said Davian, coming up behind his daughter, who had sat on the step for hours into the night refusing to move, or even react farther to the news of her marriage. "I don't think this family that you are promised to mean you treat you badly. You must simply adapt to suit you new life."_

_"It is probable," he continued when she finally looked up, " that a young woman like you can bring brightness even to their dark world."_

Ellie awoke with a shock, and looked around her comfortable little bedroom. Her light wand still glowed on the table beside the bed, and she moved to pick it up and put it out. She then lay in the pitch darkness, and thought for the first time in many years of her father, her family, and the rest of the village back on the surface. Why, she wondered, was she thinking suddenly of them. She wondered now if her father was still alive, and if her little cousins had ever married and had children of their own. She found herself missing them for the first time in years, and wondered if her homesickness had something to do with Matron Sillvee. She was well aware that house De'Afin's newmatron mother did not like her much. She never had liked her, and had always harbored resentment that her house treated a human as a member of the family. Now that she held the power, Ellie had begun to fear that she would finally try to do something about it. Sillvee was cunning and crafty. Hungry for power, and willing to do anything to get it. Even Matron Maia, in her lifetime, had begun to grow visibly frightened of her power crazed daughter.

Ellie knew that the house that she had come to know, would never be the same now that it was under Sillvee's control. She was becoming very afraid of the bloodbath that the new matron was leaving in her wake. The day after her mother had died, Matron Sillvee had sacrificed her mother's long time mate to Lolth for no crime greater than simply being a male. In her sudden haste to have a child, hoping for a daughter to take over for her one day, she had gone on a rampage, seducing lower ranked males of the house to spend the night with her, then sacrificing them in the morning, claiming them to be insufficient mates. Seven of these males had died at her hand in the one month that she had been the matron mother, and by now, the males trembled in fear when she passed them in the halls, afraid that anyone could be next to die, and knowing that if asked to share her bed, they had no right to refuse her. Two males had dared to refuse, and both of them had been given to the goddess as well.

Ellie did not understand many of the fine points that other females around her understood, but she was quite sure that Lolth did not require_ that _many sacrifices to gain her favor. Lolth was a goddess that demanded loyalty, and proof of that loyalty, Ellie knew, but ten men killed in her name in one month? She was becoming sure that Matron Sillvee was both a little too determined to remain in Lolth's highest favor, and simply looking for a convenient way to get rid of those who displeased her.

For the first time in so many years, Ellie truly felt alone in the darkness. She suddenly felt the need the feel the companionship of a man. She found herself somehow missing her long dead husband Mavash. She had not know him well, had never had the chance to know him before he was suddenly killed, but she had come to know him as someone who truly cared for her. Mavash had been a dangerous man indeed, a force to be reckoned, who killed several of his fellow drow, out of nothing more than anger, or jealousy of their position, but he had always been good to her. Ellie rolled over and hugged one of her fluffy, overstuffed pillows, as she went back to sleep, trying to decide what to do to overcome her loneliness.

_Ellie sat alone on the grass outside her family's overcrowded house, watching as the sun set in the western sky. She looked down at the crimson fabric of the brand new dress that she wore, a gift for her fifteenth birthday. Her father had given it to her that morning, telling her to wear it to travel to her new home. She could not be sure that the drow would come to bring her back tonight, but she had a good idea that they would. Somehow, she know, they could keep track of dates. _

_The family's hunting dog, tied to the porch on a long rope, suddenly began barking and growling, while jumping up and down and pulling on the rope, trying to free himself._

_"What is it, boy?" Ellie said to the dog as she looked in the direction the animal was trying to run. Her heart nearly stopped beating in a instant as she caught sight of two armored drow males, equipped with deadly looking weapons, stepping out from a grove of trees fallowed by one,just as well armed, female. Ellie stared up at the three of them, moving purposefully toward her. She rose to her feet, horrified, but determined to keep her father's bargain. Behind her, the dog began to bark with more persistence. He then whined at the end of his rope, digging his front paws into he ground, trying disparately to free himself, before running in circles long enough to tangle himself helplessly in the rope. Ellie saw the drow female gesturing to one of the males, and pointing to the dog. She did not look pleased. The two of them spoke in low tones for several minutes, before the other male, came up to Ellie and grabbed her arm, pulling her roughly to her feet. She struggled for a moment to steady herself in his grip. He began to pull her toward the trees. Ellie looked back at her home for what she knew would be the last time, then pulled her arm free from the drow with all her strength. She would walk by herself._

_The party of four went a good ways into the woods, going farther than Ellie had ever dared to venture. The darkness made the trees take on strange shapes and she looked around, jumping in fright more than once, when she heard an owl call out into the night, or a small animal scurry across the dry leaves on the ground in front of her. She stumbled several times in the dark, tripping over tree roots or stepping in small holes, and the drow female grabbed her arm to keep her from falling. Once she did fall though. Her foot hit the root of a huge tree and she went down before the priestess could save her. Her head hit a rock, and she stayed there face down on the dirt for several seconds, the wind knocked out of her. She felt the cold metal of a blade against the bare skin of her neck, and tried to look up to see who was holding that blade. Her eyes had begun to adjust to the dark, and she could make out the shape of one of the males, leaning over her, his dagger at her neck. The priestess was on the male in seconds after hearing Ellie's cry of terror. She pulled him to his feet, her hand threateningly set upon the horrid whip on her belt._

_"Our task is not to kill the human," she warned, an edge of furry in her voice. "We must bring her back to the city alive, as our matron mother ordered us to."_

_"I've no idea why," the male dared to say, as he hauled the trembling Ellie to her feet. "The matron's nephew seems quite out of his mind to want the human as a wife."_

_"Silence!" the priestess ordered abruptly, "keep moving and never argue against a female again. Now, come on. Bring the girl." _

_The group soon came to a small cave in a rocky cliff. Ellie could barely make out it's shape in the darkness, but she walked forward into it, fallowing a gentle nudge from the drow priestess. She could hear the sound of rocks grating against other rocks, and soon realized the one of the males had opened a hidden door in the back of the stone cave. She heard the footsteps of the two men, and then went forward herself, guided by the female. Her feet found a staircase beyond the doorways and she fallowed it down in pitch blackness, now unable to see at all._

_She stumbled along on flat ground for what must have been hours, with the priestess leading her by the arm. Even with the help of her guide, she still managed to bang into nearly everything in her path, and soon, she felt a thin stream of blood running down her forehead from an injury caused by a sharp piece of a stone wall. They kept moving until they reached the city of Menzobarranzen, and she could see the glow of millions of tiny magical lights, shinning at the bottom of an enormous cavern below the ledge on which they now stood._

_"Come along," the priestess said, taking Ellie's arm once again and leading her down the path off the ledge. The path was narrow and Ellie, with her lack of darkness vision, nearly fell to her death over the steep edge more than once. Her heart was pounding in terror by the time her feet once again found flat ground. The drow led her into their city and took her to a strange house. She was taken inside and shoved into a small room with a door that slammed shut behind her. She slumped to the floor and cried for what must have been hours, until no tears were left. Then she just sat staring into the darkness. The door opened soon after, and she felt herself grabbed and jerked into her feet roughly by someone whose chain mail armor rubbed against her arm painfully._

_"Our matron mother has instructed me to help you get ready for the wedding tonight," said a female voice, that she did not recognize._


	9. it all Comes Unglued

Chapter Eight. It All Comes Unglued

"Ellie, why won't this awful child stop screaming?" Shammea cried in fustration. She moved the baby, who was lying flat in her arms, up onto her shoulder with her head up to look around. It didn't seem to be helping much, if at all. The tiny drowling continued her high pitched shrieking. Ellie, perched on the edge of her chair in the sitting room, watched as her adopted sister turned and paced to the other end of the room and back, for what must have been the fortieth time in a row.

"Let me take her from you for a while," the human offered again. She had already made the offer several times in the last two hours that the baby had been crying, but Shemmea had refused each time.

"She's mine to care for," the drow snapped at her this time, using the hand not supporting the baby, to wave off her offer. "I don't think a surface dweller could calm her, if I can't."

Ellie thought that Shammea had become so differant in the eleven years she had known her. The second youngest of Shi'Vianne's children had started out so innocent almost still childlike, certainly youthful. She had since gone on to become so much more adult... and so much more hateful, and selfish. The human watched as the drow, becoming increasingly angry with the hollering baby, turned on her heel, and paced another langth of the room. She came to the far wall, and knocked down a hanging wall decoration with one hand, out of rage. It hit the stone floor with a crash, and the noise made the child scream louder.

"All you have managed to do now is scare her," Ellie said, trying to be helpful, and finding herself losing her patiance with her sister's caregiving skills.

"I have to give up," Shammea said in fusration a few moments later. "I just can't keep trying to silence this horrible child. All she seems to do is shriek and screech all the time. Ellie would you take her for a little while?" Ellie reached out and took the child from her sister, glad that she had finally given in and let her help.

She held the baby tightly against her chest for several minutes, and soon the child began to quiet. Her cries were now little more than a whimpering pout. Ellie placesd the tiny girl on her lap, and she looked up at the human, a couple of small tears shinning and wet on her little chubby cheeks. Chalzyne'fryn was already seven months old and was begining to look less like a newborn infant and more like a child. She now sat, somewhat calmly, looking up still at Ellie. One chubby little hand reached up her pull the human's wavy blond hair, while she prompty stuck her other hand into her mouth.

"Oh no," Shammea muttered from her chair nearby. "There is no way in the world, that she going to get into that awful habit." She got up and stomped over.

"No!" she said curtly in the baby's face. "No. You stop that. Now."

"What is she doing that is so wrong?" Ellie asked, flustered. "She finanlly stopped crying. Now she is just sitting here, being quiet..."

"She's sucking on her fingers," Shammea cried in exasperation. "Did you not notice? How could you not have noticed her doing that?"

"Of course I noticed," Ellie answered, dismayed as she watched Shammea smack the tiny girl's hand. Chalzyne'fryn looked up the young drow woman with a surprised and hurt look on her face for a moment. Then she turned her face toward Ellie, and burried her face in the human's cloak, pouting again.

"What in the world did you do that for?" Ellie asked in disbelief. She tilted the child's head up gently, and made her look up at her for a moment. The baby, who recoved quickly, and had learned nothing other than to be afraid of Shammea, stuffed her fingers beck into her mouth again.

"I can't have her doing that when Matron Sillvee comes to see her. She checks up on her at random times, and I can't let her know that this child has picked up such a filthy habit," was Shammea's simple response.

"She's just a baby," Ellie protested. "Besides, she seems to be teething. That's why she's been crying so much, and why she's sucking on her fingers."

"Lovely," Shammea muttered sarcastically. "Well in any case, it's time I bathed her and put her off to bed, now that she's finally settled down."

"Oh... and Ellie," she continued as an after thought, on her way out the room's back door. "Thank you for the help. I suppose a surface dweller does know a thing about babies." Ellie turned to her, with a smirk on her face.

"The surface races do have babies," she said smartly, "and surface children get miserble too. Besides, I did get Veesha through her infant years myself."

Ellie wandered out into the hall, though the room's other door and out into the hall to see what was happening on that day in the busy house.

Shi'Vianne lay in her soft bed in the night, unable to sleep for the forth night in a row. Finally after what must have been hours of lying, staring at the ceilling, she sat herself up, and swung her legs over the bedside. She stood up and walked to the door, letting it close behind her as she left the room. She walked into the hallway and headed toward the upper belcony of the house. The cleric looked out over the city, it's magical glow still shining over it, even in the middle of the night.

"This is outragous," she muttered to herself, knowing that she had to be able to sleep sometime, or her health would really suffer. She stood looking out, for a good while thinking over the events of the last several weeks.

Matron Sillvee had really gone too far, it seemed. She had been harder on the house ion the past few weeks, than she ever had before the in half a year that she had run it. People still died who crossed her path and questioned her. People still cringed at the sound her her vioce, when she called their names. Yet something was worse then ever in House De'afin. Sillvee had been spending the last month planning an attack on House Eils'rett, the city's fifth house. The people of her own house had been overworked because of it. The fighters and battle troops had been training many hours above their normal training time each day. Sillvee was also determined to remain in Lolth's highest favor, and the house clerics had gathered with her everyday to pray and to discuss their part in the attack. Shi'Vianne stood now, overlooking the sleeping city, and wondering how she could be so tired, yet so hopelessly awake. She turned around and walked back into the house, nearly running right into Ellie on her way back down the hall toward her room.

"You couldn't sleep either, I would assume," the human stated, covering the light from her wand with her hand, to avoid hurting the drow's eyes with the sudden light.

"I've been having great difficutlty sleeping lately," Shi'Vianne admitted. "I've just been so full of thoughts of this upcoming house battle. It takes up so much... Oh, I'm just worried about it, plain and simple."

"You're worried that Sil... Matron Sillvee is aiming too high by attaking a house so far above us," Eliie guessed boldly.

"Yes," Shi'Vianne told her. "You are right. I try not to let myself get worried. I try to tell myself that the daughter of my sister knows what she's doing; but to be perfactly honest, I don't think she does."

"I'm worried to," Ellie answered. "I know I'm just a human and so it doesn't really matter what I think. However, I do feel that she's letting her hunger for power get in the way of good judgement."

"You show true power of observation," the cleric replied, with a dull laugh. "It is my greatest wish that the house could once more be back as it was." She shook her head, and Ellie almost saw a glimmer of saddness cross her face. "How terrible though to be forced to think that it never again will be."

"I don't know much about the afairs of your people..." Ellie said hopelessly. She wanted to be of help to the cleric, but was unsure how she ever could be.

"Ellie," Shi'Vianne said then. "Take a walk with me. And leave the light off, I will lead you." Ellie nodded her agreement, and the cleric led her though the winding halls of house De'afin until she came to a door at the end of an out of the way hallway. She pulled it open carefuly, and pulled the human inside. Ellie could see nothing in the room, and she looked around nerviously for the cleric's glowing red eyes.

"You can put your light on now if you wish," Shi'Vianne said, and Ellie greatfully relit the dim glow.

Ellie looked around slowly at the small room, it's stone wall covered with racks of various weponery. She had never seen that room before.

"Where are we?" she dared to ask.

"The experimental armory," Shi'Vianne replied. She looked at Ellie's puzzled expression, then continued.

"The weapon master has long been interested in designing new and better weaponery for the house. These are many of his prototypes. We are right below the trianing gym now."

"Why did you bring me here, of all places, in the middle of the night?" Ellie asked next, looking in curiousity at the items in the cluttered room.

"Because this is one place in the house where I feel we are safe to talk without Sillvee knowing about it," The cleric replied. "She has no real intrest in this room, or in any of the rooms controled by males."

"What do you need to talk with me about?" Ellie asked, begining to grow nervous.

"I am just so very concerned for the house, now that sillvee is in full power over it. She is, and always has been insane, that one," Shi'Vianne told the young human. "It may seem like her behaviour is getting worse, but it isn't really. The trouble is happening so obviously now, because my sister is no longer alive to keep control of her. She was at least able to keep a decent hold of her daughter in any case, even if that hold was weak at best."

"Would a drow, especially a matron mother, not simply kill her own child, if that child was too hard to control?" Ellie asked. "A daughter like that could easily be viewed as a threat to her mothers power, or to Loth's favor."

"You are truely learning a lot." Shi'Vianne answered. "Then again, eleven years here with us, and one should pick up a few things, I suppose. Yes, it would normally be common to kill a daughter who behaves like Sillvee always has. However, Matron Maia could never bring herself to do it. She could not kill her own child, ever after I once dealt with the result of sillvee's attack with a sharp blade."

Ellie looked at her in curiousity, and the cleric went on. "Sillvee was still a child then. High strung and stubbern as anything. She had a streak that just could not be tamed. Maia once repremanded her for something or another, and in her insuing rage at her mother, young Sillvee picked up a sharpened dagger from the table, one that my sister often carried, hidden in her boot to protect herself, and she slashed Maia's arm with it."

"She could have healed herself easily under any other cercumstances, I am sure; but that day, she panicked. She was not used to the idea of being openly struck out against in her own sitting room, and least of all by her own little daughter. She ran to me, in a nearby room for help, and I quickly healed her. There was no real lasting damage done. I told her though that sillvee should be given to Lolth. She was going to turn out to hard to handle, and cause problems for the house. It was clear to me, that if the child lived, she would hunger only for control. There is more to leading a house, than just having control. A matron mother must be in good comumication with the goodess. She must know what is in her house's best interest. her desisions must be well thought out and her plans well calculated. Sillvee posesses none of those traits. It would would simply have been better to kill her, before she was able to grow up and kill her sister."

"Would Ginnea really have made a better matron mother?" Ellie asked, still very unsure of drow standards in such matters.

"Ginnea was ambitious, and determined, and very devoted to Lolth," Shi'Vianne answered. "She had an good understanding of our tenants, and had the drive to take us higher in the ranks of the city. She was also more logical, and lesss battle lusting. She would never have planned to attack the fifth house in Menzoberranzan. She would have known that a move like that is foolish." Ellie found herself once again feeling sad for the death of her cousin. She was now even more convinced that sillvee had only killed her to lighten the competition she would have for her mother's title.

"Ellie," Shi'Vianne said, after a moments brief silence. "You have lived among us for eleven years, but have always been kept sheltered from as much of our culture as possible. I did it that way, both to keep Lolth from growing angry with us for sharing to much with an outsider, as well as to protect you. I will admit that the first time I saw you, you were huddled on the floor of a small room in this house, with dirt on your hand, crying like you life was over. I wanted to kill you then and there. I don't know exactly if it was because I felt bad for you, or if I simply felt that I had made a mistake in choosing such a weak willed girl to mate with my son. Something stopped me though, and I'm now glad it did. Your wedding to Mavash was the next day, and when I saw you then you were so much differant from that first moment. You suddenly seemed so detiermined to survive, so determined to keep your father's bargain. I was suddenly very sure I wanted to get to know you as a person. I had never before been as curious about any surface dweller, as I was about you. It wasn't long until you somehow became another of my daughters."

"What stopped you?" Ellie asked suddenly, during a pause.

'What stopped me from what?"

"From..."

"Killing you that day?"

"Yes," Ellie said. "Why did you not do it?"

"Naphalee," The cleric answered. "She was with me the day I went to look in on you. I had brought her with me, because she had never seen a surface creature before. I wanted her to learn something. Yet it was I who learned that day." Ellie looked at her in focused attention, and Shi'Vianne went on.

"I was reaching for my blade, when that tiny, innocent child grabbed hold of my arm. She looked up at me asked why I wished to kill someone just because she was crying. My little daughter reminded me that if a drow was ever trapped on the surface, she would likely get very angry. Anger and helplessness are both emotions, she reminded me, and she asked why I would kill someone just for asting as she normally would, not yet knowing any better. I knew then I could teach you better than you';re old weakness, and so I kept you alive. I must admit, I was curious to se what would happen to you in our city. I wondered just how far a human could go."

"I sheltered you though, Ellie," Shi'Vianne continued. "I saw your innocence, which reminded me of that of a small child, not yet trained in the true ways of my race, and I could not let that be dstroyed. A drow child will quickly learn to outgrow their innocence, but I knew that if I kept you sleltered, you never would. The most brutal thing you have ever seen here was the exacution of a man who wronged you, and the fall of another house. You were taught to kill as well as us, but still you have stayed innocent. You have truely seen nothing of the truth yet."

"Shi'Vianne, I... I don't understand," Ellie said anxiously.

"You will Ellie," the drow replied calmly. "I cannot shelter you anymore. Not as I have all those years. Things are changing all around us now. Matron Sillvee is not going to tolerate the things this house has done for years, and we will all have to change with her whims now."

"Why was this house the way it was?" Ellie asked then. "I don't know much about drow society, but I know enough to be aware that things have happened here that would never be allowed to happen in any other house."

"It was all my sister's doing," Shi'Vianne answered, her voice filled with pride. "She was forced into the position of matron mother at the incredibly young age of ninety one. I myself was only seventy two, and still in a acadamy, with years left to go. My sister was just barely past her graduation, and with our mother suddenly dead it was up to her to take over, or the house would fall. There was no one else, aside from her who might have done it, and so, she stepped into the position very unsure of herself. Maia was a noble woman though, and though new to the service of Lolth, was proud, and determined to do her best. She cared nothing for rank within the city, and had no interest in the chance to overthorow another house. She had little concern for the arrairs of the city at all. Her life was devoted only to her own house, and to staying in Lolth's favor. Sillvee was born a few years later, and having no one who could raise the baby for her, was quite pleased to raise the child herself. She would never have dreamed of forcing me to take yoear off from my studies, and raise a baby for her. Her other daughter, Ginnea was born about the time I graduated the academy, and I took care of that child for her. Her son was born two centeries later, and sillvee did a fine job of beating that boy black and blue, and tearing his confidance apart until he reached the age to train as a fighter, and he became a killer, because of his rage. He wished to kill sillvee, from an early age, but would never have dared.

"Maia truely believed in progress, a trait I must admit is strange for a drow, and she always wondered what the children would say if ever they were allowed to say it. She let hers speak out, and gave them freedom that no drow noble child has ever known.. When I began to have mine as well, they had the same treatment. My oldest ones, who raised the youngest ones, did so, with the same ideas I taught to them. You would be amazed, Ellie, utterly amazed, at what wisdom can come from the mind of a child, if you stop to listen to the words."

"This has always been a progressive house in many ways it seems to me," Ellie said. "I will be sorry to see it all come to an end."

"The situation could soon become all the worse as well, now that Matron Sillvee is pregnant."

"What will happen now?" Ellie asked. This was the first she had heard o fSillvee's pregnancy in the first place.

"I'm not sure. I have a bad feeling about that one," Shi'vianne answered. "If the baby is male, there is a good chance that Sillvee, wanting her first living child to be daughter, will simply give him to Lolth."

"And if the child is female, like she is wishing?" Ellie dared to ask.

"Well," Shi'Vianne replied sadly. "We might well end up with a new, younger version of Matron Sillvee to contend with in several centuries."

"We shopuld both be returning to our beds," Shi'Vianne said suddenly, after several silent moments spent in the small room. "We should both at least try to get some sleep this night." Ellie began to walk out of the room, fallowing the cleiric down the hallway to find her way back. She began to think at that time of how Shi'Vianne had been right. She had sheltered her from the worst of her world. A world she had heard plenty of from her sisters, as they bragged about their deeds. She noticed to that in all her years among the drow, Shi'Vianne had never really showed her any of the love that a mother normally would for a daughter. She doubted that it was because she was not really her daughter at all, because had never seen her show affection for the others either, even young Naphalee.

As the cleric came to the hallway where Ellie would find her room easily form, and turned to wald away to hers, Ellie impulsively reached out and took hold of Shi'Vianne's arm. The drow turned back around to face her, and Ellie wrapped her arms around her, hiding her face in the cleric's long red night loungewear. She stayed like that, for the several seconds that the drow stood, too shocked to move or react,. and did not see the look on Shi'Vianne's face before she shoved her off roughly. Ellie stumbeled hard into the wall behind her and watched in surprised hurt as hi'Vianne glared at her heartlessly for a second, then turned on her heel and went off down the hall.

Shi'Vianne walked the halls of the house on her way to pray in the chapel. She wished that she could shake the feeling that had sat in the pit of her stomach for the last two days, bothering her, eating her up for the inside. She wished she had not shoved Ellie away from her when all the human wanted was to be hugged back. The cleric truely wished to apologize to her adopted human daughter and to explain to her the reason she had pushed her away. Shi'Vianne however, had not seen Ellie in the past two days. The last time she had seen her had been when she turned and walked away in a shocked rage. She had tried to find Ellie in the training gym, where she knew the human often practiced with her chosen weapon, the long sword. Ellie was never there when she looked in, and finally, after inquiring to the weapon master, the cleric had learned that the young woman had not been seen there in days. She had looked as well, in all the usual places that Ellie could be, the sitting rooms, her own bedroom, the rooms of the children, the outdoor compound with veesha. No Ellie anywhere. Veesha, upon being qestioned, did tell the cleric that her mother was still in the house, she had been seen by her daughter alot, but everytime Shi'vianne looked around, she could still not find her. Shi'Vianne was unsure what to think. Was Ellie hurt by her actions? She tried to convince herself that nothing was wrong. The human had many times not been seen by her for days. House De'afin was a large house, with a large compund and hundreds of people within it. It was not uncommon to go many days without running into a certain person.

The drow rounded a corner and suddenly stumbled upon her human daughter. She began to hurry forward, upon seeing Ellie standing, leaning against the wall at he end of the hallway, but soon, her breath caught in her chest. She realized now, from looking at the human's unbalanced, slouching stance, that something had happened. She came closer and saw that Ellie held her left hand over her upper right arm. When she saw the cleric mover closer to her, the human looked up, and shi'Vianne saw that a thin line of blood ran from her human daughters mouth, from a badly cut lip.

"Ellie," Shi'Vianne said, and the human made an effort to stand up straight, still holding her arm. "Ellie, what happened?"

"I think I must have angered the matron mother," Ellie replied simply, as Shi'Vianne took her by her good arm, and led her back down the hall. "She told me to start to teach veesha her true place in this world, a place beneath the drow, because she is nothing but mixed blooded filth. I told her I would never let my daughter think I don't love her, and Matron sillvee punched me in the mouth." They had come to the cleric's bedroom now and Shi'Vianne sat Ellie down on the bed.

"What's wrong with your arm?" she asked, afraid that she already knew the answer.

"Her whip," Ellie answered, as the cleric began to pull the torn dress from over her arm, forcing her hand away also. "She said I must learn to feel the pain of punishment, so that I will never argue against her again." Shi'Vianne looked at Ellie's arm, and could see the obvious damage done by the whip Sillvee wielded. The worst of it was the deep gashes on the human's right arm, but there had been more done to her back as well, and to the left side of her body.

"What stopped her?" Shi'Vianne asked, knowing that the house's newest matron mother would never have stopped at that point on her own, if something had not caused her to stop.

"Someone came to call her to the chapel," Ellie said shakily. "Something about a some kind of trouble with another house. I... don't really..."

"Don't worry about not knowing the exact reason," Shi'Vianne said. "The most important thing is that she stopped when she did." Shi'Vianne helped Ellie to lay dow on her bed, and she sat down on the edge beside her. She looked down at the horrible, bleeding gashes on the young woman's body and thought of the sadness of it all. Ellie, in all elven of the years she had been there, had never before been subjected to punishment like that. Shi'Vianne pushed the thought out of her mind, as she set to work healing the human.

"Ellie," Shi'Vianne said as her adopted daughter pulled her clothing back on. "I have been looking for you for days, meaning to apologize to you."

"Apoligize?" Ellie asked. "What for?"

"I am very sorry I shoved you into a wall when you tried to hug me," Shi'Vianne said. "I meant only to push you, not to make you bang into the wall behind you. I should not, however, have pushed you in the first place. I don't know what came over me, I really don't. I am just not used to hugging my children. Our society does not raise children who require that kind of thing. I suppose I need to always remember that you are differant though. You are human."

"It... it's alright." Ellie replied. "I wasn't hurt when I hit the wall, just a little shocked."

"Still though, I feel bad that I reacted that way," Shi'vianne answered. Then she quickly regained her usual tone of detached mater of factness.

"You should be getting to bed now. It is still early evening, but your ordeal will have weakened you. Rest well, and by morning you shall be fine. Also, do not worry. I'll not tell Veesha of this insident."

"Thank you," Ellie replied, as she turned to walk toward her own room.

"I wish my awful niece had just been killed before she had the chance to make all this trouble," Shi'Vianne muttered to herself. She knew that the comment Ellie had made about Matron sillvee being told of a problem with another house, had to do with he attack she was planning on House Elis'Rett. She knew in her heart that there was a problem with the attack. It was likely that her plans had been discovered by house Elis'Rett itself, and the wisest move would now be to back off. She also knew though that sillvee would never back off. She was too careless, and too determined to expand her circle of power. She knocked over a small table near the door in rage, then let the door slam shut behind her. Not ofter was Shi'Vianne so prone to rages like that, but it was becoming all to much for her to bare. She knew that she could not just stand by, while her house fell to ruin, yet she was powerless to stop it from happening.

"I don't understand why you don't just kill her," said a voice behind her suddenly, and Shi'Vianne nearly shrieked in fright, as she whirled around, hand on the hilt of her dagger, which she pulled from it's concieled place under her robe. The dagger fell from her grasp as she stared at the one who had spoke. Shi'Vianne, for all her years of training, and all her years of having seen things most others never would, could not help nearly falling back against the wall in surprise, and a sence of fear. She bent to retrieve the fallen dagger and tucked it back into her robe, knowing that it would not help her this time.

"Matron Erellin," she gasped in shock, somehow finding her voice. "Mother!"

"I am glad I was sent to you, and no one else," the spirit replied lightly, from her place in the middle of the bedroom floor, her knees pulled up to her wiast, sitting easily. "If one like you nearly had your heart stop, I would be amazed to see the reaction of a lower cleric." Shi'Vianne, who had summonded many spirits in her lifetime, and had a very good understanding of how to handle them, had never before been in the presance of one who had simply appeared on it's own accord.

"What are you doing here?" The cleric demanded firmly. She was trying her best to restore her dignity, and she knew she may well have to soon take control of the spirit, to be able to release it.

"Lolth sent me," Matron Erellin said, as though the information should have been obvious. She shifted her knees a little, and sat straighter on the floor.

"I don't see why you have not simply done away with sillvee on your own free will yet," the spirit continued. "I must say that in all the years I've been gone, Menzoberranzan has become sloppy... undriven. I recall the days when a person such as that negligant sillvee would never have lived to see her days in the accadamy. Now, here she is, this day in age: a matron mother with no will to do anything right. She is surely going to doom your house to fall."

"I cannot kill a matron mother," Shi'Vianne replied. "Such a deed just is not done. Surely I would cause this house to fall into Lolth's great disfavor, by carrying out such an act."

"And if the new matron mother's death was demanded by Lolth herself?" the spirit asked, her mouth turned up in a triumphant grin.

"Our goddess wishes me to kill Sillvee?" Shi'Vianne repeated in disbelief. "I am sure that such a thing is unpresadented in the..."

"I died in Lolth's hightest favor," Matron Erellin said. "I must be worthy of trusting to know a few things about her will." Shi'Vianne only nodded her head mutely, as the spirit went on. "It is her personal disire that sillvee be killed, as soon as it can be pulled off. You are the one who she has chosen to do the deed. There are ways it could be done. No one would likely ever catch you. Although, I must say, from the look of this house lately, I really don't think anyone would persacute you, even if you were caught."

"Killing Matron Sillvee would leave this house leaderless," Shi'Vianne said then. "She is the last generation of her family. Who would take her position? It would be typical for her sister to take over, but she killed Ginnea years ago."

"You could step in," the spirit said. "You are the highest ranked sister of the last matron. If it had happened that sillvee and ginnea were both unable to step in when Maia died, it would have all been yours anyway." Shi'Vianne looked at the spirit in wonder. She was begining to see the logic in her words... and the possiblities that they implied.

"I shall try my best to carry out this task," she relpied.

"You must do so as soon as you see your first oppertunity," the spirit told her. "House De'afin will march out in an attack on house Elis'rett in a short time if she lives. If the attack goes forward, this house is certain to fall."

"I have been worried for this house greatly," Shi'vianne admitted.

"I have worried too," the spirit replied. I died knowing that you and your sister would be alright, and you were. Maia took over the rule of the house, and you soon became a high priestess. The house was ablanced wel, and well run, even though she was young, and young were barely past your youth. Now Maia is dead, and her mistake of letting her daughter live, is going to distroy all I watched this house work for all these past years."

"It shall be taken care of," Shi'Vianne answered confidently

Veesha was sound asleep in her bed after a tiring day of working in the house kitchen. She had been pushed harder than ever in her daily work lately, and had begun to realize that matron Sillvee had set up this increase in her workload. She had been awakened every morning early for the past several months, and given task after task all day long, until she was behind of her chores, and had many more waiting for her. Veesha was soon forced to stay awake until she was caught up on everything. then she would fall into bed late intot he night in time to gwet a few short hours of sleep, before the whole routine began again the next morning.

She had finally stummbled into her bed only two hours earlier after and had fallen into a sound, exhausted sleep. She now heard the sound of someone calling her name. The girl forced herself to wake up, and she opened her eyes, which she could barely keep open, due to her exhaustion.

"Veesha," Ellie was saying, as she leaned over the bed, to shake her daughter again. "Wake up. We need to go."

"Go?" Veesha repeated slowly. "Go where?" The child forced herself up, and sat on the edge of the bed, while her mother passed her a set of clothes and and her old pare of well worn boots. Veesha looked over to see a small case, and a backpack in the corner of the room, by the door. Ellie stood, dressed in traveler's clothes,a nd carried her own pack on her back already.

"Mother," veesha said in confussion, as she dressed. "Where are we going? Why are we leaving in the night?" Her eyes grew wide as she grew suddenly more awake. she stared at ellie with fear on her face.

"Mother, is the house under attack?"

"No Veesha," Ellie answered. "We are not under attack." She helped her daughter into her pack ,and gently pushed her toward the door. "We are going home."

"Home?" Veesha echoed, confussed. "But mother... this is our home. We... we live here."

"We are going to my home," Ellie replied. "Back to the village where I grew up." Veesha's eyes grew wide with wonder.

"The surface?" she exlaimed in disbelief.


	10. On the move

**I'm actually back and this story shall be finished! Why was i away for like two whole years? Not really sure, I guess just writers block and lack on inspiration, and then finally just having forgotten about fanfics and gotten busy in life. With renewed interest however I have returned to this type of writing.**

**Why, some may wonder, are the some of the Drow so much nicer than they typically should be? That is actually a coming plot development and there is somewhat of a reason for it. All shall be explained in the final chapters.**

Chapter nine. On the Move

Ellie and her daughter ran from the house. There were guards at the doors of course but house guards did not generally stop anyone from leaving a house. They mearly kept outsiders from entering without reason. Ellie muttered a quick excuse to the guard nearest to the gate, about a late night errand for the house kitchens; but the young man was almost sleeping at his post anyway, sitting on the ground, his back against the outside of the gate, and his weapon barely within arms reach on the ground. Ellie decided, she would not bother to wake him up and shout at him for his idiotic decision to doze off while on guard duty, and to let go of his weapon. She simply pulled her young daughter closer to her, and hurried faster.

"Mother," Veesha said, "How do we even know the way up? No on ever goes up. Only forwards and back again."

"People go up," Ellie answered, still hurrying on. "Armies out on surface raids, a handful of successful runaways, and the odd lost traveler. I got down here of course so surely I can get back up there again."

"But which way do we go?" Veesha was lost and confused already and they had only just started out. Ellie had thought before, while she planned her greatest and most daring move ever, of leaving her there in the drow city. It was the place she had been born, and knew as home, but Ellie knew she could not just leave her behind. She could not just abandon her own child, and besides there were already a growing number of people, based on talk overheard in the house, that wanted to kill her for nothing other than for being half human.

She reached into the left hand pocket of her traveling cloak, and pulled out a well worn sheet of securely rolled paper, tied with a piece of string. She carefully unrolled it after untying the string and give it a quick look over. Veesha stood, peeking over her mother's shoulder.

"A map," the child observed, "showing a route all the way to the surface somewhere?"

"Yes," Ellie said. "I got it from a man in the market place months ago. Overheard folks talking about how he knew the way anywhere and I decided to ask him to direct me upwards. He laughed immensely at the thought of some human female even trying it, but he provided me with a map anyway. I think, he was most confused over how I got here in the first place than anything else."

"Did you love my father?" Veesha asked as Ellie re-rolled the map and pointed to a corridor to the left. The question was right out of nowhere. Veesha had stopped asking about her father very early in her life, after being told that he was dead and that was that. Ellie, startled by the question, nearly lost her footing as she stumbled over some loose rocks at the base of a tunnel. She grabbed hold of the wall ahead of her to avoid falling and quite possibly hurting herself.

"I didn't really know him," she answered, stopping and turning to talk to her child face to face. "Our marriage was arranged and I had no say in it all. I have no really idea even how and why it came to be that he was given me, a human, to be his wife. I've heard it said he wanted a human wife and his mother had found a way to get one for him, but I will never understand why he would have wanted one in the first place."

"Yes, but did you love him?" Veesha asked again. She was only ten years old. Still young, innocent and determined to know exactly what she has set out to find out.

"No," Ellie answered honestly. "We didn't have long enough and I don't think I ever could have anyway."

"Did he love you?" Veesha asked next, as Ellie gently pushed her into the tunnel ahead of her, and then took hold of her pack to hint at the need for them to stay very close together.

"Drow cannot love anyone," Ellie said in matter of fact tones. "No, he didn't love me. I was simply a mate for him. I suppose I was valued somewhat as something unique and different that none of the other males had."

"I think I understand now," Veesha said, smiling as they walked.

"We had respect for each other though. Well as much as possible in this backward and confused society. He had his sense of already well taught respect for me as a female that had to be thought of as part of his house. I respected him as a person because anyone deserves respect until they show reason not to be respected."

"Mother, where are we now?"

"Still in the city. Not even anywhere close to the center. if we keep going down this tunnel for a short while we should come out again near the market place, and just east of the seventeenth house."

"Why can't we just walk on the main streets? The ground would not be such a tripping hazard out of the road."

"We can't walk the streets along at night out here. This is such a deadly and dangerous city. There might be some creature or another in here, but anything that could fit in this narrow space would likely be something I could kill." Ellie kept one hand on the sword she carried under her cloak just to be certain.

The pair reached the end of the tunnel without incident and stepped out onto the paved street at the edge of the part of the city devoted to the marketplace. There was no one around. Neither had ever seen the place at night before, when the city was for the most part asleep. It was at this time, Ellie knew that the place was most dangerous. Without the crowds and the noise, muggers and assassins hid, lurking in the shadows cast by glowing lights over the city. They were well known to hide, just waiting for a chance for a gain of a slightly higher position in society by killing the holder of one above their own, or just for a chance at some coins, and often just ready to kill for the fun of it. Ellie glanced around in fright. She knew full well that anyone could be hiding anywhere, and that she lacked the skill that so often meant life or death down there. She could not see in the heat spectrum, and she was fully aware that anyone wishing to do so, could be hiding behind a rock, confidant in her inability to sense the heat of a living body not even two feet from her.

She put her light out. Veesha had some ability to see in the dark, and the lights above gave off a faint glow. She did not want to attract attention by carrying a light though the area. As soon as she put it out though, Ellie wondered if perhaps she ought to put it back on again. If one of them were to trip and fall they would certainly be more likely to be attacked and carrying a light and waking with their heads up would show more confidence. She decided it was best to leave the light out, and she stayed close to the outer wall that framed the marketplace, as she started her route over to the other side of the huge area, over to the place where an entrance to a second tunnel awaited them.

Ellie kept her daughter in front of her where she could at least try to protect her, and they continued along the wall, inching sideways with their backs to it as best they could with their packs on. From a street nearby, three females hurried into the marketplace area. They were whispering amongst themselves and rushing through. All three past the two standing against the wall, but none of them took any real notice of them. Ellie decided they were just three young females on their way home from some late night gathering, paying more attention to the possibility of dangerous creatures or someone waiting to kill them, than to a human and a little child lurking in the corner. Ellie waited for them to pass and then led her daughter by the hand the rest of the way to the tunnel. She gently pushed her into the narrow opening, and they stepped forward once again. This passageway was narrower than the last one. She put her light back on in there, because of the total and complete darkness, and saw that it was for the most part, only a couple of feet wide with a ceiling at least a hundred feet above them. The ground was more uneven here than it had been in the previous tunnel, and both of them stumbled many times over large rocks that had no firm hold in the ground at all. Ellie's greatest fear when they started out had been for Veesha's safety on this incredible and near impossible journey. She knew that of all those who had ever tried, few according to the stories that were constantly spoken of, ever made it to the surface alive. And of these that did make it and were thought to be wandering somewhere up there, there had never been, as far she she could learn, an account of any traveling with a child. She of course did not speak these greatest of concerns to her daughter. She did not tell her that they were both just as likely to die than to make it out. She tried the best she could as they walked along to make it seem more like an adventure than a dangerous escape. She had decided to make the journey in spite of all the failures she had heard about and the lack of any accounts of children making it, because she was aware of one factor she was sure could give them a far better chance. Most of the people that had run for the surface, had never been there before, or had gone before only briefly, before returning to the darkness once again. They were people with no real idea of how to meet their needs up there. No idea how to stay warm in the cold, or how to find food well enough to survive. Ellie had been born and raised up there and knew full well how to survive while traveling. All the while though as they walked through the darkness and mostly in silence constantly listening for the sounds of any motion nearby, she was fearful of their very possible failure. She may have known well enough how to survive in the surface world, but she had to get herself and her daughter up there first. The tunnels were far more than half the battle.

She had decided when she first made up her mind to go, that if something should happen to her she would tell Veesha to go on alone and could only hope that she would make it by herself. She knew however that that was very doubtful. Also, she wondered, would her child, at such a young age, even dare to go on alone if her mother was dead. Would she, Ellie wondered, filled with sudden dread, be found in many days to come sitting in some dark tunnel somewhere down there far from the city, on the brink of death herself, shivering from cold and hunger, unable to continue and ready to give up. They had to keep going, Ellie reminded herself with determination. Her fear of what might happen to her daughter without her only gave her a greater driver to try harder to move faster and to not get herself killed.

They came to a place where the tunnel grew wider, and the map confirmed that they were still going the right way. Veesha stepped forward into a small open cavern where the walls gave way to openness and promptly she let out a scream of shock. Ellie, of course still walking right behind her, froze in horror at hearing her child's shriek and then quickly she snapped to her senses and dove forward, sword in hard.

"Bats," Veesha said. She was over her sudden fright quickly and waved her arms about in annoyance. A swarm of small bats flew every which way, after the disturbance the child's footsteps had caused to their home. Ellie recognized their kind. She had been shown one before years ago when Naphalee, still a child then, had brought one into the house and caused a stir among the kitchen staff . They were not overly dangerous creatures, not poisonous or capable of any great harm, but they did have very sharp teeth and could bit very hard. Though their mouths were very small, their bites could certainly inflict pain. They were also however relatively fearful thing and would more than likely be more afraid of the two people then elle and Veesha were of them. Ellie swung her sword in the air wildly and shouted, trying to intimidate the winged critters. Veesha, understanding immediately what the idea was, began to jump up and down while waving her arms and yelling loudly. Some of the bats flew from the tunnel, while others went high up to the ceiling and out of arms reach. Veesha and Ellie continued on their way.

"Are you alright?" Ellie signaled in hand-signs , as the pair walked on.

"Yes, of course," Veesha signaled back.

"Did any bite you?"

"No. I was just startled by them in here. I was not expecting to run into bats so I screamed. Are you alright, Mother?"

"Yes. I wasn't hurt either."

They walked in silence and without communicating for a while longer. Each was thinking her own thoughts as they walked on. The darkness of the tunnel, which had narrowed again, and the dim light of Ellie's lamp just went on and on. They were lucky really. The upper tunnels, that would led them to the surface were not so far from them as they were from some other cities, and these one would be simple to reach. The part of the country they would emerge in, should, she was sure from both the map and a conversation years ago with her adoptive mother, be near the place she had grown up with her father. It was only likely to be a few weeks travel to her home in a village whose name she could barely recall now. What would her father say when he saw Veesha, she wondered with worry. She could only hope he and the the rest of the village for that matter would accept her. Was her father still alive? The thought that he might be died by then was not one she had ever really considered before. How old would he be now? She tried to add up his age in relation to hers in her head. He would be an old man now, she realized with sadness. It was hard to imagine him as any older or different than he had been nearly twelve years before, the last time she had seen him. Yet, of course he would be different. The whole village would have changed, and she herself would be nearly forgotten, and considered likely to be long dead.

The two stopped to rest for a few moments in a place that felt safe enough to do so and she tried to rid her mind of such terrible thoughts. Of course she was not forgotten and of course her father would accept them both. He had to, she knew. If he sent them both out of his life, they would stand little chance of making a life for themselves. Veesha might never be accepted anywhere and her mother would not abandon her.

The feeling of a hand firmly grabbing her arm, snapped her once more from her thoughts. Elle screamed and prepared to fight back with force, as she spun around to find her attacker. A pair of red eyes glowing in the darkness of the entrance to a side passageway not marked on her map, and nearly hidden, caught her attention. She was about to tell her daughter to run and hide, but she knew it would do little good. The drow in the tunnel was likely, she knew, part of a returning raiding party. There would be many others all around very quickly, as raiders most often if not always, stayed in groups. They had not been out to look for the human and her daughter, of course and had probably just finished making some trouble for another house outside of their own. Any of the others that would no doubt be very close behind, a short ways into that passage, would find the child and kill her right away. Ellie was certain that although the run-in had been purely by accident a raiding party would not care. Already in a mood for killing and trouble and instilling fear, they would do away with the pair only because saw the chance and they felt like it.

"Foolish girl, " said a female voice, as the firmly gripping hand pulled her into the side passage. "Get in here and out of site before you get both of you killed. Bring the little one as well of course."


End file.
